Gilas Pilipinas: Cone says SEAG no time for try-outs as he picks veterans over youngsters

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New Gilas Pilipinas Men head coach Tim Cone explained why he chose the players on the 15-man PBA national team pool for the 2019 SEA Games, which noticeably left a few names out of the list.
The 15 players who were initially named by Cone to the SEAG pool were LA Tenorio, Scottie Thompson, Greg Slaughter, Stanley Pringle, Art Dela Cruz, Japeth Aguilar, Marcio Lassiter, Chris Ross, June Mar Fajardo, Christian Standhardinger, Troy Rosario, RR Pogoy, Jayson Castro, Vic Manuel, and Matthew Wright.

The current pool obviously misses some household names like CJ Perez and Robert Bolick, who both represented the Philippines in the 2019 FIBA World Cup albeit as replacements.

Cone said via a report on Spin.ph that the SEA Games team should be a win-now team basically, and he went for experience instead of youth.

Said Cone per Spin.ph:

“We didn’t add the young PBA players or amateurs because of the short window we have to prepare. We just don’t have the practice time for tryouts.

After the SEA Games, the SBP will come out with a new player pool that will address the long term.

Our apologies to the young guns CJ Perez, Robert Bolick, Terrence Romeo, Bobby Ray Parks. Needless to say, your time is coming very soon.”

 

Even amateur players initially reported to be part of the pool like Kai Sotto, Kobe Paras, Isaac Go, Thirdy Ravena, and Dave Ildefonso were left out.

Save for Manuel and Dela Cruz, all players in the 15-man pool have been veterans for Gilas throughout the World Cup Asian Qualifiers.

Perez and Bolick were instead named to the 3×3 pool which includes players like Baser Amer, Raymond Almazan, Chris Newsome, and Mo Tautuaa.

(FIBA.com photo)