WHEN IT RAIN, IT POURS

As an old saying goes, 'when it rains, it pours', true enough in the case of the current sets of Gilas-Pilipinas players, made up of 12 young, talented and skilled individuals, including their head coach Tim Cone,offers and great opportunities opened following the nationals’ overwhelming performance in the recent the FIBA Asia Cup first window qualifier.

The younger, skilled and more talented sets of Gilas players’ overpowering dominance over host Hong Kong, 94-64, before putting up a more impressive win over Chinese-Taipei, 106-53, completing a sweep of their first window assignments. Their convincing triumphs opened series of offers and great opportunities, whether for the team or each individual players.

Even Cone was also rained with offers and opportunities that would further boost or widen his horizon as far as coaching is concerned. There were reports that Cone was offered for whopping $10 m by Japan B-League, either to coach a team or as B-League’s team consultant and teach his perfected brand of play. The “ Triangle Offence”.

The Japanese B-League coaches find Cone’s system as truly effective as evidently brought success for Gilas-Pilipinas as the nationals climbed twice in the FIBA Power Ranking. The first ranking came out last February 24 with Gilas in fourth spot behind Australia,Japan and Lebanon.

But just recently, FIBA came out with latestbupdate after all the qualifying windows have been completed, Gilas-Pilipinas dislodged Lebanon at third position with a + 83 power rating against Lebanon’s + 75.

The rain of offers and opportunities came out when Cone pronounced that the 7' 3" Kai Sotto will soon dominate Asia as he was really sure about it during the post game interview. “If you get him in the right spots, he can absolutely dominate Asia. For him, the next spot is to get up to the European level and the NBA level as we’re hoping we could get him into that level.”

Cone based his assessment on Sotto’s last three games during the Japan B-League, where he averages 16 to 20 points or more en-route to double-double performance in just 20 to 23 minutes of play and the same performance showed by the former Ateneo stalwarts against Hong Kong where he produced 13 points and 10 rebounds, while piercing up 18 points 10 rebounds against Chinese-Taipei.

Thus making Sotto the most sought after player in the players’ market, getting an invitation to join series of NBA summer training camp in pursuit of his NBA dream. Aside from the million dollar extension contract being offered by his current team the Hiroshima Dragonflies, whether he would sign a new deal or seats out the remaInder of his contract.

Another Gilas player who is likewise getting an invitation to play abroad the youthful Kevin Quiambao, being rumoured and eyed by scouts from the New York Knicks following his recent stint in the Dubai International Invitational championship, wherein he played for Strong Group Athletics side by side with former NBA superstar Dwight Howard.

Despite having not played for nearly three and half months, naturalised player Justine “Noypi” Brownlee was also impressive in his comeback game with Gilas-Pilipinas shooting 16 points, 10 rebounds In his first game showing signs of rust versus Hong Kong, before regaining his complete form in the second games against Taiwan with 26 point and 12 rebounds.

Brownlee’s impressive comeback, didn’t escape the watchful eyes of international scouts , he’s flooded offers to play abroad as the PBA is currently playing the All-Filipino Conference, wherein his services is not needed, though is a naturalised Filipino two years ago.

Cone likewise mentioned it in the post-game interview, in the meantime Brownlee might go abroad while awaiting for the resumption of the import conference of the PBA and to be backed in time for Gilas’ next preparation for the Paris 2024 Olympic Qualifying Tournament from July 2 to 7 in Riga, Latvia.