TALK about commitment to the highest level and Meralco’s Chris Newsome has tons as he continued to show up at Gilas Pilipinas’s weekly practice despite a calf contusion that forced him to miss their Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner’s Cup game against Barangay Ginebra last Sunday.
Newsome was one of 16 players who practiced Monday night for an hour at the Meralco Gym. He sat on the sidelines along with naturalized candidate and Ginebra resident import Justin Brownlee while the other 14 healthy bodies did routines on shooting and ran different sets.
Even more impressive were the Gin Kings stalwarts—reigning Most Valuable Player Scottie Thompson, Gilas mainstay Japeth Aguilar and their newest teammate, Jamie Malonzo.
The three players were coming off a hard-won game, 99-91, against bitter rival Meralco. They joined their Ginebra coach, Tim Cone, who helped out Gilas head coach Chot Reyes and assistant coach, Josh Reyes, in the training.
“We told the players, some of them had games last night (Sunday). Everyone has also practised today (Monday), so we’re not going to overextend them,” Chot Reyes said. “We have specific things that we want to achieve. So today, we wanted to achieve a couple of things done and they went hard right away. These guys are in shape, but more importantly get the opportunity of playing together.”
Reyes added: “I like the energy of the young players, but even more impressive was the energy of the PBA players, especially the Ginebra team, which just played a hard game on Sunday.”
Key players from San Miguel Beer and TNT were also in full force, joining the third session of Gilas in line with their preparation for the fifth window of the Fiba Asia Qualifiers in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, respectively.
Both matches will be played away as the Philippines takes on FIBA Asia Cup semifinalist Jordan on November 7 then Saudi Arabia on November 10.
Six-time PBA MVP June Mar Fajardo and CJ Perez, two of the Beermen’s starters, were in attendance, same with TNT stars Roger Pogoy, Poy Erram and the newest Ka Tropa, promising sophomore Calvin Oftana.
College stars Carl Tamayo of University of the Philippines, Kevin Quiambao of De La Salle and Angelo Kouame of Ateneo and LeBron Lopez also participated in the training session.
After going head-to-head over the weekend in their team’s University Athletic Association of the Philippines game on opening day, Tamayo and Quiambao were on the court as teammates with Gilas.
Tamayo showed up 25 minutes late as he had to catch up from their training with the Fighting Maroons.
Also present were Arvin Tolentino, who now transferred to NorthPort, but stayed committed with the national team program, as well as William Navarro.