FEARED for his explosive shooting in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), Gary David has been firing blanks in the biggest basketball stage in Asia.
The league’s “El Granada” hasn’t exploded yet from long range after flubbing all his seven three-point attempts in the three games that Gilas Pilipinas has played so far in the ongoing 27th Fiba Asia Championship.
Averaging almost 20 points per game for Globalport in the PBA, the 6-foot-2 David made just two shots out of 18 tries from the field in the opening round of the Asian championship where the Philippines made it to the second round with two victories and a defeat.
Worse, the two-time current PBA scoring king was scoreless during the national team’s stinging 79-84 defeat to Chinese Taipei on Saturday night.
“I’ll do my best to improve in the second round,” said David in Filipino, who misfired two jumpers early in the fourth period as the Taiwanese staged a rally.
He shares the shooting guard position with snipers Larry Fonacier and Jeff Chan, who already had spectacular outings for Gilas in the tournament.
Overall, he was 0-of-6 from the three-point area and finished with four points against Saudi Arabia. David had two free throws against Jordan and missed all his five attempts against Taipei.