No more pool invites as Yeng Guiao focuses on final Gilas team for Fiba World Cup

Gilas Pilipinas huddles at the start of practice. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines—There will be no additional names to the training pool from which national team head coach Yeng Guiao will be picking the Gilas Pilipinas’ roster for 2019 Fiba Basketball World Cup.

After the latest invitations to CJ Perez, Robert Bolick and Matthew Wright to the pool, Guiao said he has to start forming his final line up with the World Cup barely two months away on August 31 in China.

“We’ll have to make it a cut off then because we won’t be inviting anymore,” said Guiao. “This was the last invitation and then we’ll have to work on the final team because the tournament is getting closer, Andray [Blatche] is also coming in, so we have to put the team together.”

Blatche is expected to arrive mid-July after he attends to the custody case involving his child in the United States.

Wright, who returned to Gilas duty on Thursday after playing in four windows during the Fiba World Cup Asian Qualifiers, was chosen for his performance in the ongoing 2019 PBA Commissioner’s Cup.

The 6-foot-4 guard has been tearing it up for the 4-4 Fuel Masters averaging 21.4 points, on 41 percent shooting from the field and 38 percent from beyond the arc, 3.6 rebounds, and 5.1 assists.

Guiao added that he chose to invite Wright, who played due to the performance

“His games just spoke for themselves, he was playing really well and he’s shooting well,” said Guiao of Wright who was named as the PBA Press Corps’ Player of the Week on Wednesday.

“We understand that we have to have many shooters as we can in the team and he’s been with us before so he’s quite familiar with myself and the system we run. He won’t have a hard time adjusting.”

Wright joined Gabe Norwood, June Mar Fajardo, Marcio Lassiter, Troy Rosario, Paul Lee, Raymond Almazan, Japeth Aguilar, Perez, Kiefer Ravena Beau Belga, and Stanley Pringle on Thursday.

Belga and Pringle, however, won’t be part of the national training pool and only joined Gilas as practice players.

“The problem with extra bodies like Stanley is he will play as a naturalized player so his role here is to just really help the team,” said Guiao. “Beau is also not included in the pool, but he’s still volunteering to be an extra body.”