GILAS Pilipinas kicks off its preparations for the qualifiers of the Paris Olympics by holding a closed-door training camp at the Inspire Sports Academy this weekend.
Head coach Tim Cone and the entire national team heads off to their Laguna-based camp starting on Friday and ends up on Sunday.
Naturalized player Justin Brownlee arrived in the country last Monday and will join the team for the entire duration of the training camp.
Brownlee is coming fresh from his stint with Indonesian club Pelita Jaya in the Basketball Champions League Asia recently held in Dubai.
The national team however, will not have injured players AJ Edu (knee) and Jamie Malonzo (calf) around, with reserves Japeth Aguilar and young big man Mason Amos expected to fill in their spots.
Sponsored content: The rest of the team is composed of June Mar Fajardo, CJ Perez, Chris Newsome, Scottie Thompson, Calvin Oftana, Dwight Ramos, Kevin Quiambao, Carl Tamayo, and Kai Sotto.
After the camp, Gilas will play a tune up game against the Taiwan Mustangs on Monday at the Philsports Arena as part of the sendoff prepared by the Samahang Basketball ng Pilipinas (SBP).
The match is set at 6 pm and will be aired live on One Sports, One Sports+, and Pilipinas Live.
The following day, the Filipinos leave for Europe for a friendly against the national teams of Turkey and Poland before proceeding to Latvia for the qualifiers.
The OQT is set from July 2-7 in Latvia, where the Philippines is bracketed with Georgia and the host country.(RG)
