Andray Blatche arrived an hour early for Gilas Pilipinas’ Sunday afternoon practice at the Meralco Gym. And the 30-year-old had yet to catch on some sleep since 4:30am.
“I’m just extremely sleepy. I’m tired. From Atlanta to LA it took five hours, then had a two hour layover. 11 hours from LA to here,” Blatche shared.
“It’s hard to sleep on the plane and the time difference didn’t help. When I get to my room, I’ll immediately go to sleep.”
This is the first time the naturalized Filipino has returned to Manila since Gilas Pilipinas’ FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament campaign that ended last July 10. After 10 months, he admitted that he has missed the country a lot.
“I missed it a lot. It’s good to see of a lot familiar faces, friends, and coaches,” the 6-foot-11 big man expressed.
One of the familiar faces he saw was Japeth Aguilar and June Mar Fajardo. From the last time he played with them, the native of Syracuse, New York saw vast improvements from their game.
“I see Japeth and June Mar got a lot better… hell of a lot better. I wish them good,” he said.
But the new players in the team have impressed Blatche as well, noting that Raymond Almazan will be a game-changer for the team.
“I see we have a lot of great shooters. Number four [Matthew Wright] is a great shooter and as well as number 12 or number 9 [Allein Maliksi], I forgot [the number] one of them,” remarked Blatche, who won the CBA championship last March.
“Also that new tall kid over there, I can tell you, he brings a lot of energy and outside shooting too,” he said while pointing to Almazan.
And with a formidable lineup, Blatche believes that they will remain the kings of SEABA — a tournament that begins on Friday, May 12.
“This is my first time to play in the SEABA, I’m not familiar with it but as long as we do our job, we will be successful,” the silver medalist in the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship said.
“We got a couple more days to go before the tournament starts. We’ll come out with a win, nothing less.”
