Philippines Senior National Team Thread Vol. V

[BJ_Reloaded]

Wait, you mean the consensus top 5 pick for 2025, and the player every major scout says as second coming of james harden will go to UAAP? Did I miss anything?

Sir C2,

we could never tell.

in an imperfect and filthy world of ours, money talks so loud.

in fairness to Rutgers Univ. it is considered as one of the best schools in the US inside top 50.

they are known academically for courses like IT, Nursing, Biological Science, Sports Science, Finance, Law among others

but on sports specifically on mens and womens basketball, well I considered them in the lower-mid tier team(In my own personal opinion.)

yup he is in the top 5 class of 2025, many thanks to his MVP like performance in a recently concluded Jordan Classic.

if he somehow decided to enter the transfer portal to play in a much higher ranked team chances are his stock may rise significantly

and where talking about 6'4sh to 6'5 ceiling here, there's a lot out there in the pond maybe if he had a growth spurts(many thanks to his Afro genes) to make it to the 6'8 to 6'9 level then that's another story.

amongst the pinoy hafus 6'4 1/2 -6'5 Jalen Green is still the gold standard but we all know he can't crack even the 12th spots of Team Uncle Sam because as I said there's a lot of big fish in the 6'3 to 6'6 category.

[Joe Yabuki]

Based on Naveen Ganglani's podcast, there are rumors that Lucero, Galinato, Harper, Jr. and QMB might get their eligibility as locals in FIBA. I don't know if it's true. But if it is indeed true, this will be big for us, especially the addition of Lucero and Harper, Jr. QMB's game is still untested in pros so I have resevations on him but Lucero and Harper, Jr.'s addition is big.

i hope we can sneak in Brandon Bates there, cant offer much offensively but he more than held his own agaist junemar and was a key player on their defense

[live_evil]

Ange is the key to a versatile lineup. Him being classified as a local will open a multitude of options for Tim Cone both offensively and defensively. He should be the successor to Japeth. A frontline of Sotto, Edu, Fajardo, and Kouame with two of them inside the court will do wonders for us.

[Dotch]

Wait, you mean the consensus top 5 pick for 2025, and the player every major scout says as second coming of james harden will go to UAAP? Did I miss anything?

I dont think Dylan will prioritize NT duties especially since he's ranked in the tier only below prospective No.1 Cooper Flagg, and even if he does, it would be hard because USAB already capped him, albeit in the USA U19 NT.

[paliganibossalfrancis]

Feels like brp is no longer aggressive these days

BRP went downhill since he started dating zeinab ha ha

[paliganibossalfrancis]

LeBron Lopez and Callum Harris will fare better.

Lebron Lopez, Rhenz Abando and Caelum Harris World Level

Kevin Quiambao, Calvin Oftana and Carl Tamayo Asian Level

There's gotta be tiers to our pool. We can't expect someone na pang-Asia lang then all of the sudden perform at World Level. We also have to consider that there's a lot of moving parts. Injuries, contracts, availability.

[Dotch]

BRP went downhill since he started dating zeinab ha ha

BRP didnt really push himself to be better, right? Or was it the weight of the nation that burned him. He at least tried the GLeague and Summer League circuits, but yeah, i guess he already peaked and plateau'd and just settled to be a rotation player in Japan.

[sroth3839]

Lebron Lopez, Rhenz Abando and Caelum Harris World Level

Kevin Quiambao, Calvin Oftana and Carl Tamayo Asian Level

There's gotta be tiers to our pool. We can't expect someone na pang-Asia lang then all of the sudden perform at World Level. We also have to consider that there's a lot of moving parts. Injuries, contracts, availability.

Scottie —> Asian level
Newsome —> World level

[Rds]

We have always known that JMF at this point would be lacking in the highest comp. This is the best Ive seen him but its a bit late. Starting 2014 they should have prioritized his defensive quickness but no. It was only Tab who asked him to lose weight to be quicker. But SMC never supported this as it was his heavier weight that made him dominant in the PBA. It is like seeing Kai and forcing Kai to gain more weight to be more dominant offensively when we need his defense and quickness more.

[Rds]

Why are we so fixated in exempting Kouame. Thats close to impossible. We dont even give our NPs opportunity to play in the PBA. The question should be is can we continue to deny Kouame the NP slot? JB is aging and can be limited by more athletic teams. Boatwright is just a one dimensional shooter with a wingspan just equal to his height of 6’9.5. Edu is often injured. If we hope to reach higher comp we need a center NP. Kai is good but he wont be as strong as JF nor even Kouame. He is best as a stretch 5 and not a post player. We need Kouame for that.

[paliganibossalfrancis]

BRP didnt really push himself to be better, right? Or was it the weight of the nation that burned him. He at least tried the GLeague and Summer League circuits, but yeah, i guess he already peaked and plateau'd and just settled to be a rotation player in Japan.

Oh man.... once you get the women and the money, you do get complacent. But I don't think he plateau'd, he's just... steady. Consistently playing at a high level. Watch his games in Japan and he's solid.

I still feel like BRP would love to play for Gilas. His heart to play for flag is still there. Eh kung ayaw sayo ni Chot edi kay Zeinab ka muna diba? Just can't understand what was the thought process of Chot choosing Pogoy over him in the World Cup. Was it PBA representation? Tropang Giga representation? Still salty Parks chose BLeague over TNT? Parks would have been the perfect bail out guy when our offense became stagnant outside of Dwight and Rhenz.

[paliganibossalfrancis]

Why are we so fixated in exempting Kouame. Thats close to impossible. We dont even give our NPs opportunity to play in the PBA. The question should be is can we continue to deny Kouame the NP slot? JB is aging and can be limited by more athletic teams. Boatwright is just a one dimensional shooter with a wingspan just equal to his height of 6’9.5. Edu is often injured. If we hope to reach higher comp we need a center NP. Kai is good but he wont be as strong as JF nor even Kouame. He is best as a stretch 5 and not a post player. We need Kouame for that.

Gilas with Kouame is like Gilas 2.0 with Douthit. We have to exempt Kouame so we can have another naturalized wing which is our main weakness. We can't produce a 6'6-6'8 multidimensional scorer.

We have to seek exemption of both Kouame and Clarkson actually. Both are appealable cases. Clarkson having Filipino blood, Kouame spending his young adult life in the Philippines.

[JOI2dWorld]

Gilas with Kouame is like Gilas 2.0 with Douthit. We have to exempt Kouame so we can have another naturalized wing which is our main weakness. We can't produce a 6'6-6'8 multidimensional scorer.

We have to seek exemption of both Kouame and Clarkson actually. Both are appealable cases. Clarkson having Filipino blood, Kouame spending his young adult life in the Philippines.

This, Kouame being the naturalized player is only an option if there is a local that is a dynamic scorer, Kouame is not Blatche who can carry the scoring, Kouame's offensive game is not that good to be considered as the first naturalized option, that's why some of us want him to be exempted, Abassi's case can be a good ground for Kouame's exemption, the only thing needs to happen is allowing him to play as a local in PBA

[Giannis34GOD]

Oh man.... once you get the women and the money, you do get complacent. But I don't think he plateau'd, he's just... steady. Consistently playing at a high level. Watch his games in Japan and he's solid.

I still feel like BRP would love to play for Gilas. His heart to play for flag is still there. Eh kung ayaw sayo ni Chot edi kay Zeinab ka muna diba? Just can't understand what was the thought process of Chot choosing Pogoy over him in the World Cup. Was it PBA representation? Tropang Giga representation? Still salty Parks chose BLeague over TNT? Parks would have been the perfect bail out guy when our offense became stagnant outside of Dwight and Rhenz.

Well, you already know the answer… The much known guys who are really fit for Gilas such as Abando, Baltazar is also not there… even the NBA guy Clarkson also denied…

[Rds]

This, Kouame being the naturalized player is only an option if there is a local that is a dynamic scorer, Kouame is not Blatche who can carry the scoring, Kouame's offensive game is not that good to be considered as the first naturalized option, that's why some of us want him to be exempted, Abassi's case can be a good ground for Kouame's exemption, the only thing needs to happen is allowing him to play as a local in PBA

Kouame being exempted is unlikely. Him playing as a local in the PBA is unlikely. Even Japan does not treat NPs as locals. I dont believe a high scoring NP is required. Remember Tabs team? That team was close to defeating Serbia without Dwight. There goes SF scoring for you. And that was early in his program. Balti was only a couple of months in his program and was already a key contributor. You can imagine with more development Tab’s Gilas would be at par with Euro teams. He was not as successful against DR but that was without Dwight. And again with more development we might have also been competitive against them. A high scoring NP is not necessary if you have the whole team being able to generate offense.