Two-time Asia's Best Point Guard Jayson Castro is back to set the table for Gilas Pilipinas in the Southeast Asian Games.
Gilas coach Tim Cone said it didn't take much to convince Castro to answer the call of the national team again after begging off from action in the recent FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
"We have asked him to come back and join the program and I'm really proud of the fact that he decided to come back and help us out," said Cone.
"He's one of the big missing links in the last try we had (World Cup)," he added.
Castro "retired" from international play to attend to family matters, leaving Gilas without its influential veteran playmaker when it battled the likes of Italy and Serbia in the China World Cup and lost badly.
Sponsored content: But at least for this SEAG, "The Blur" is giving it another go. No less than PBA chairman and TNT governor Ricky Vargas phoned Castro to ask him to give Cone's team a helping hand.
"It was supposed to be me who's gonna ask him because we know he's retired but the board wanted to know right away. So Mr. Vargas called him and said we'd like you to unretire and come back and play in the SEA Games and he said right away, 'yeah, I'll do it," recalled Cone.
The Gilas strategist tapped Castro to lead the reinforcements to his six Barangay Ginebra players in the 15-man SEAG pool.
Aside from Castro, his fellow TNT KaTropas RR Pogoy and Troy Rosario, San Miguel's Marcio Lassiter, Christian Standhardinger, Chris Ross and June Mar Fajardo, Alaska's Vic Manuel, and Phoenix Pulse's Matthew Wright, will augment the Ginebra nucleus of LA Tenorio, Scottie Thompson, Stanley Pringle, Greg Slaughter, Japeth Aguilar and Arthur dela Cruz.
Cone said he likes his pool's versatility.
Sponsored content: "I know there's always gonna be questions why this guy, why wasn't that guy and I can't go through every reason. But we're just trying to find the balance in terms of position and trying to find the pieces of the puzzle together, that's what we're trying to do," said Cone.
"With this list, we didn't go for all shooters, all power players or slashers; we tried to find the balance in which we can show different lineups. We can play big if we wanna play big; we can play small if we wanna play small; we can play across the board, all similar height if iwe want to.
So it was really looking for a versatile lineup," added Cone, who also selected the 15 veterans taking into consideration the short training period they'll have. (OL)
