Tim Cone wants one of the top scorers of the PBA today to boost the Gilas Pilipinas 5-on-5 men’s podium chances in this month’s 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
The Ginebra head coach admitted that two-time PBA champion Mikey Williams of TNT is on his wishlist to make up the final 12 players who will compete in the tournament dubbed the ‘Olympics of Asia.’
“One of the guys who we’re talking about who’s still up in the air is, and you guys all know him since he can be a real impact force, Mikey Williams,” said Cone about the two-time Finals MVP.
“But he’s not a lock on the team since we’re still trying to get him here on time to start preparing for us. He’s a game-changer if we could get him on the team with his ability to score and stretch the defense.
“He would open up things for Justin (Brownlee)… He’s one of the guys we’d like to have but he’s still questionable,” he continued.
Cone, his assistant coaches Richard del Rosario, LA Tenorio, Jong Uichico and Josh Reyes, along with team manager Alfrancis Chua and assistant team manager PBA commissioner Willie Marcial and the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas officials, are scrambling to form a team.
The decorated head coach stated that San Miguel Corporation players Scottie Thompson, Japeth Aguilar, June Mar Fajardo and import Brownlee are shoo-ins to make the final lineup while Christian Standhardinger and Jamie Malonzo are questionable because of the injuries they are still recovering from.
Also being called up by Chua are World Cup team members Roger Pogoy and CJ Perez, along with pool members Chris Newsome and Calvin Oftana.
Free agent Angelo Kouame is also a possible member of Cone’s team.
One player, though, whom the 30th Southeast Asian Games gold medalist will not call up is Pampanga stalwart Justine Baltazar, who is currently with the Giant Lanterns in the MPBL.
“Balti, we have tried to get Balti forever,” said Cone. “He is never available. We tried to get him for the World Cup team. We tried really, really hard to get him for the World Cup.
“He was one of our guys who we really desired but he’s just not available… He has shown us zero interest..”
While there are question marks as to who will make the final lineup, there are a few certainties of who cannot join. Members of the last World Cup squad who play professionally overseas will not be in the team because of their commitments to their mother teams.
This rules out the likes of Kai Sotto, Dwight Ramos, Jordan Clarkson, AJ Edu, Rhenz Abando, and Kiefer Ravena.
This will mainly be a PBA-backed team and Cone is looking to get those he can within this short turnaround to make the best out of this situation.
“You can’t win if you don’t bring your best players,” he said. “That’s what’s always been my opinion about the national team — if you don’t bring your best players, you’re not gonna win then you have to get your best players to be your best team.
“So we’re not gonna bring our best players at the moment because we’re not gonna have the guys from Japan, the guys from Korea but we’re gonna get the best players who are available and try to make them the best team and I think that’s important. There are still a lot of guys who can play from the PBA”
