Two Gilas invitees will no longer join the pool of players that will comprise the national team set to compete in the FIBA World Championship and Asian Games this year as Greg Slaughter and Marcio Lassiter announced their withdrawal on Friday night.
Slaughter and Lassiter decided to pull out from the pool, where they were included along with 14 other PBA players, bound to train for World Cup and the Asiad due to similar reason that they want to give way to the original members of the national squad.
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“Today, I would like to inform everybody my situation with Gilas. For me, personally, it wouldn’t feel right to take away from the players who deserve it. The12 guys who played there (in Fiba-Asia Men’s Championship), they rightfully deserve it,” Lassiter stated in Spin.Ph interview.
The 6’11 center and the streaky San Miguel guard along with Paul Lee and Beau Belga are the recent additions in the core of Gilas that clinched a silver medal finish in the FIBA Asia Championship last August that qualify the country to the Spain meet.
LA Tenorio, Jason Castro, Jimmy Alapag, Larry Fonacier, Jeff Chan, Gary David, Gabe Norwood, Mark Pingris, Ranidel De Ocampo, Japeth Aguilar, Junmar Fajardo and naturalized player Marcus Douthit on the other hand are part of the national squad then.
The withdrawal of the two potential significant additions in the pool came following the bold statement of Coach Chot Reyes that there are no shoe-ins in the squad and that it includes even the roster of the last FIBA competition.
Meanwhile, rumors are claiming that the San Miguel Corporation, which holds the mother teams of the two cagers, had a hand in their decision. Slaughter and Lassiter both suited up in the first Gilas program in 2010 and 2011.