GILAS Pilipinas naturalized star Justin Brownlee arrived in the country early morning yesterday, two weeks before he suits up for the Nationals in the first window of the FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers later this month.
San Miguel Corporation sports director Alfrancis Chua posted a photo of him with Brownlee and fittingly captioned it: “He’s back, JB,” taken at the SMC headquarters in Ortigas.
The FIBA issued Brownlee a Notice of Charge carrying a proposed three (3) month period of Ineligibility about his anti-doping rule violation during the Hangzhou Asian Games last October.
A few days after Brownlee powered the Filipino cagers’ drive to end the country’s long and agonizing 61-year title dry spell in the Asiad, the International Testing Agency announced that he had tested positive for a prohibited substance.
He opted to serve a provisional suspension period which started last Nov. 9, making himself unavailable for the Kings’ title-retention bid in the season-opening tourney.
Brownlee not playing a game since the gold-medal triumph against Jordan hastened his return to the Philippine five along with the fact that the banned substance he used was taken out-of-competition and unrelated to performance enhancement.
He will team up with Scottie Thompson, Jamie Malonzo, Chris Newsome, Calvin Oftana, CJ Perez, June Mar Fajardo, Dwight Ramos, AJ Edu, Carl Tamayo, Kai Sotto, and Kevin Quiambao who comprise the national team training pool of coach Tim Cone.
Gilas will launch its bid on the road against Hong Kong on Feb. 22 and will square off with Chinese Taipei three days later at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig.
The second round of the qualifiers is set for Nov. 21 and Nov. 24.
Gilas wound up with a 1-4 slate under former strategist Chot Reyes for 24th in the 32-team field in the last World Cup that the Philippines co-hosted with Japan and Indonesia.
The Philippine five will also face a daunting task–seemingly a Mission Impossible–to gain a berth in the Paris Olympics.
The Philippines is bracketed with host and world No. 8 Latvia, and No. 23 Georgia in Group A in the Olympic qualifying tournament.
