Nine pool players participated in Gilas Pilipinas’ first practice at Inspire Sports Academy in Laguna on Tuesday.
Dwight Ramos, who arrived from Hokkaido on Monday evening, joined Justin Brownlee, June Mar Fajardo, Scottie Thompson, CJ Perez, Chris Newsome, RJ Abarrientos, and newcomers Juan Gomez de Liano and Justine Baltazar for the five-day camp.
Troy Rosario, though not part of the 16-man pool for the FIBA World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers, is also at Inspire.
AJ Edu is expected to join the nationals later this week, along with KBL imports Kevin Quiambao and Carl Tamayo.
Also serving as a practice player for Gilas is Far Eastern University’s American student-athlete, Montell Shelton.
Missing from this window are Quentin Millora-Brown, Kai Sotto, and Jamie Malonzo.
Millora-Brown has yet to commit to the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, as his camp has not finalized a national team contract with the federation.
Meanwhile, Sotto, who is already playing with Koshigaya, is still in the process of fully recovering from an ACL tear he sustained last year.
Malonzo, Gilas’ hero during the 33rd Southeast Asian Games, opted out of this window.
“Jamie is in the States and was not available. We did invite him, but he hopes to join the next window,” Gilas head coach Tim Cone told Tiebreaker Times.
This means Cone will only make one roster cut ahead of the Philippines’ home games against New Zealand on February 27 and Australia on March 1.
Gilas currently sit at 2-0 in Pool A.
