FILE – Bay Area Dragons’ Hayden Blankley. –PBA IMAGES
MANILA, Philippines-Glen Yang, Hayden Blankley, Kobey Lam, Zhu Songwei and Liu Chuanxing will be among the returnees when the Bay Area Dragons compete once more as a guest team in the season-opening PBA Commissioner’s Cup in October.
The Dragons made the announcement Tuesday with Yang, Blankley, Lam, Zhu and Liu among the eight players from the team that lost to Barangay Ginebra in the Finals of the same conference last season.
Also back are former Hong Kong national team standouts Duncan Reid, Ju Mingxin and Zheng Qilong.
Coach Brian Goorjian’s squad has added five new players in Bay Area’s bid to become the second foreign team to win a PBA title, adding Ramon Cao, Seva Chan, Adili Kuerban, Oliver Xu and Wang Zunzhang.
“We’re building this team based on our learnings from the previous season, which was a successful one,” Goorjian said in a statement released by the team. “We’re very excited about the potential of our roster this year and can’t wait to showcase our players’ talent to fans in Hong Kong SAR and the world.”
FILE – Bay Area Dragons’ Kobey Lam stars in Game 4 win. –PBA IMAGES
Bay Area is set to play its home games in Hong Kong, not only for the East Asia Super League, but possibly during the Commissioner’s Cup.
The team plans to have exhibition games against Chinese Basketball Association teams as part of their build-up for the PBA and EASL stints.
Under Goorjian with Myles Powell and Andrew Nicholson sharing the import role, the Dragons came a win shy of beating crowd-favorite Ginebra for the Commissioner’s Cup title, losing Game 7 before 54,000 fans at Philippine Arena in Bocaue, Bulacan last January.
The Dragons eventually took third place in the EASL Champions Week in Japan, defeating eventual B.League champion Ryukyu Golden Kings in a consolation game in early March.