Riley Grigsby won’t be fully let go by Barangay Ginebra.
The American forward will remain as the Kings’ standby import, with the perennial contenders expected to welcome Justin Brownlee back when the PBA Season 50 Governors’ Cup group stage resumes on October 7.
“Riley will stay on-call for us,” head coach Tim Cone told members of the press Friday night.
“And if something happens to Justin or he can’t make it, there’s a good chance we bring Riley back. He’s a good guy, he knows what we do.”
Cone’s comments came moments after Ginebra’s 97-88 defeat to Meralco, which was Grigsby’s final game with the team. ‘JB’ is likely to take up the role once more — provided, of course, that he’s fully healthy after the next two months.
The league’s winningest import has focused on rest and recovery during this part of the season-ending conference due to various leg injuries caused by the wear and tear of juggling duties with his mother team and Gilas.
That prompted the team to search for a substitute, eventually bringing in the 26-year-old, who was a full scholar at Seattle University and was fresh off a season-long stint in the G League.
Grigsby put up solid numbers and appeared to be a good fit with Ginebra, although the team struggled in the six games they played in the group stage. Their latest loss was their second in a row, dropping them to 2-5 in Group B.
Cone, though, is full of regret that they weren’t able to play better for their import, who had to reinforce a squad that missed not only the services of Brownlee but of former MVP Scottie Thompson due to bruised hamstrings.
“I just wish I had done better for Riley,” he lamented.
“He’s such a good guy. We really wanted to play better for him, and we didn’t; I wanted to coach better for him, but I didn’t. We put him in kind of an unfair situation there. We didn’t play like a championship team this whole six games.”
Cone and Ginebra, though, are looking forward to better days ahead, especially when the weeks-long break — made by the PBA to give way to the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers and the 20th Asian Games — ends.
“Hopefully this break we’ll get everybody going in the right direction. I can get through the window and the Asian Games and really reignite, refocus into Ginebra. That’s the plan at this point,” said the Gilas Pilipinas head coach.
And also because Brownlee is returning soon.
The PBA’s only seven-time champion import, according to Cone, is arriving in Manila this Sunday, just in time for Gilas’ preparations for Window 4 that begins Monday — about two weeks before they host Jordan and Iran in Pasay.
