Chot Reyes Pleads More Time for Gilas Pilipinas Buildup

Philippine national basketball team, Gilas Pilipinas head coach Chot Reyes asked and pleads for more time for Gilas Pilipinas preparations and buildup for the upcoming FIBA World Cup and the Asian Games in 2014.

Gilas Pilipinas 2014

The national coach of the Philippines international basketball program Chot Reyes cited the preparations of Asian rival South Korea who have already revealed their schedule of preparations for the upcoming FIBA World Cup, the most prestigious international basketball tournament worldwide aside from the Olympic basketball.

According to a news report from Spin.ph, the South Korean national basketball team will be having a training camp starting on April to May; May to June training abroad; June, July, August, exhibition matches and on September the FIBA World Cup and Asian Games final preparations.

Chot Reyes took to Twitter and aired his sentiments with the lack of time to prepare for the FIBA World Cup. According to Reyes, the Gilas Pilipinas will start their preparation in August, while the tournament proper will be held in August 30 t0 September 14, 2014.

The PBA board has already laid down its season schedule that will surely leave a brief window for the Gilas Pilipinas squad beginning on August 1 for Gilas’ players to be available for the national team. Their is also a tendency that the August 1 schedule of Gilas’ training camp will not include national players who will be seeing action in the finals of the PBA Governors Cup which is set to end on August 15 if it goes down to full Seven Games.

Coach Chot Reyes beg for help especially to the PBA Board, he was quoted as saying “I know the PBA has already made a lot of sacrifices for the hosting of the Fiba-Asia (championships) last year and it is paying for it this season,” said the multi-titled coach. “But I hope they could find a way to give Gilas more time to prepare for the World Cup.” he said.

Coach Chot Reyes main concerned is the buildup of the Gilas Players because he also wanted to participate in pre-World Cup pocket tournaments as invitations came in for the Philippines. Some of the countries that are who invited the Philippines are Lithuania, New Zealand, and Puerto Rico.

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