National coach Chot Reyes will name his Gilas-Pilipinas lineup today after the PBA board of governors formally approves the revisions done for the rest of the pro league’s season.
The board convenes again, less than a week after ironing things out in a working trip in Singapore, as the PBA has agreed to postpone the opening of the season-ending Governors’ Cup for late August.
Manila hosts the Fiba-Asia World Basketball Championship qualifier from Aug. 1 to 11, and the import-spiced Third Conference will run after that until October to give the national squad a chance to jell.
Reyes said in earlier interviews that members of the team that won the Jones Cup in Taipei in August and those who played in the Fiba-Asia Cup in Tokyo the following month will be considered for inclusion.
Whatever number Reyes would come up with will be the main discussion, though some members of the board, in talks in Singapore, had hinted that they want Reyes to come up with his final 12 men.
The new schedule of the league also means that the Commissioner’s Cup, which opens tomorrow at Smart Araneta Coliseum, would now run up to late May.
That would still leave Reyes more than two months to whip the Nationals into shape as they battle Asia’s best, including powerhouses China, Iran, South Korea, Lebanon and Jordan for slots to the Worlds in Madrid next year.
The Fiba-Asia tournament will give World Championship slots to the top three placers. It will mark the first time in 40 years that the continent’s biggest cage show will be played in Manila.
Team Philippines, then bannered by legendary cagers Bogs Adornado and Robert Jaworski, won in 1973.