WITH the Olympic qualifying tournament kicking off in less than a month, Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone is convinced the Nationals’ upstart cagers–big man AJ Edu and forwards Carl Tamayo and Kevin Quiambao — have big roles to play.
The 6-foot-10 Edu will be one of the men in the middle for the squad along with June Mar Fajardo and Kai Sotto.
“AJ is a key guy because he’s our true big man stopper and he’s going to be the guy that guards Porzingis (Kristaps),” Cone said. “Poor guy or someone like that or you know the NBA guy Goga (Bidatze) from Georgia.
“So, you know, he’s got a tough job and we’re going to need him,” he added.
Naturalized star Justin Brownlee leads Cone’s team for the OQT from July 2 to 7 in Latvia along with Scottie Thompson, Chris Newsome, Calvin Oftana, CJ Perez, and Dwight Ramos.
Alternates Japeth Aguilar and Mason Amos complete the squad.
With 6-foot-7 forward Jamie Malonzo out for the OQT due to a recent calf injury operation, Cone is set to name either Aguilar or Amos as his replacement.
Tamayo has the makings of a future star for the Philippine five, according to Cone.
“There’s really very little he can’t do. He just needs to harness it all. Again, he’s young, he needs to harness it and kind of throw it all in one direction and that’s going to come with maturity,” Cone said of Tamayo. “Another reason why he’s on this team, he could be our superstar in 2027 or 2028 by that time.
“He’s just going to be coming into his prime even before his prime still at that time.”
The Filipino cagers, ranked 37th, must finish in the top two of its group that includes Georgia and Latvia to reach the crossover semifinals against the top two of Group B, which includes No. 12 Brazil, No. 17 Montenegro, and No. 67 Cameroon.
The winners of the crossover semis will duke it out for the lone slot in the Olympics set in July in the French capital.
Also getting Cone’s fancy is Quiambao, the reigning UAAP MVP and La Salle standout whom he said “can guard anybody.
“Kevin is so multi-talented. He’s going to be really fun to explore his skills. I think he has skills that people haven’t seen yet that he can do that people don’t realize and we didn’t have the time to really put him and throw them in different positions,” he said. “It was because the system was so foreign to him, so we kept them at one spot and said ‘Okay, you learn it right there because if we try to move you here move you there it’s just going to get all confusing.’
“But now that he’s done that, we expect to try to give him a little bit more versatility and move around. He can play the guard position. He can play the wing position for us. He can stretch all the way out to a power forward position, and he can guard anybody.”
