Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone acknowledged that it was not able to field the best team possible for its defense of the Asian Games gold that ended on a horrific note by missing a spot in the quarterfinals.
Cone and the Philippines’ bid to repeat their dream run three years ago ended on Monday with a 105-61 defeat at the hands of China, not only failing to win but also avoiding a loss of 38 points or more which would have been enough for them to get out of the group stage.
For Cone, the absence of some familiar faces for the Asiad affected Gilas.
‘Deeply disappointed we couldn’t get to the quarters,’ Cone said. ‘But it’s a reminder for us that if we don’t or can’t bring our best players to these international events, we won’t excel. We brought some really good players, but we didn’t bring our best players.’
Gilas was left to go with an all-PBA lineup with Kai Sotto and some of the B.League and Korean Basketball League players unavailable, alongside Cone’s reliables on his Gilas teams in recent Fiba windows.
Also hurting Gilas was the absence of a naturalized player, with Justin Brownlee unavailable at the last minute despite having a slot reserved for him and Bennie Boatwright still in the process of completing his citizenship process despite a naturalization bill lapsing into law.
‘It would have been nice to have Kai and AJ [Edu] and Q [Quentin Millora-Brown] and Mike Philips and Dwight [Ramos] and KQ [Kevin Quiambao] and Carl [Tamayo] and the like, but they weren’t permitted from their mother teams,’ Cone said.
‘We would have liked Justin and Bennie (or even Jordan Clarkson), but none were available, and it’s not an easy process to naturalize players like it is in other countries. Even June Mar [Fajardo] would have made an impact,’ he added.
Gilas went 1-2 in Group C, losing to Bahrain which had four naturalized players before getting its only win at the expense of Kazakhstan.