By REYNALD MAGALLON
Kevin Quiambao, Carl Tamayo and even Mason Amos may have seen little minutes for Gilas Pilipinas in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Riga, Latvia but there was not a single doubt in the mind of coach Tim Cone that they are the future of the national team.
The veteran mentor, in fact, would want to continue to have them in the national team for the upcoming tournaments and windows amidst reports circulating that Amos and Quiambao could miss the November window of the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers due to the UAAP season.
“As far as we know, we have a complete agreement with the UAAP. It was already established before the first window that the UAAP will free up their players and bend their schedule so that they can play in November,” said Cone during the Gilas press conference on Monday, July 15.
“I fully expect them to be a part of it. We had a meeting with the stakeholders, the PBA, the UAAP, and the NCAA and they will make their guys available,” he added.
Cone then stressed how crucial it is for him and the program to have them, particularly Quiambao, to participate and continuously develop with the national team.
“Kevin is an absolutely huge part of this program. He is, without a doubt, our future. Within a year or two, he will be the veteran of this group and some of the veterans that we have are gonna get a little bit older,” Cone said of the last UAAP season’s Most Valuable Player.
“[Some of the vets] would not be available for the World Cup. That’s just the way you build the team right? I can’t guarantee that the 12 guys that we have now are gonna be the same 12 four years from now,” he added.
Quiambao along with Tamayo, could be a vital part of the core that will still have current Gilas stars like Dwight Ramos, AJ Edu and Kai Sotto in the future.
“We want to keep the core intact as possible. Kevin and Carl really represent that core of players that we want to grow in the system and become the future stars of the Gilas team so they are very, very important,” he said.
Even Amos, although still an alternate player along with Japeth Aguilar in case there will be players not available from the original 12, is one that Cone is looking to get accustomed more to the system in the upcoming windows.
“I feel very bad about this but we never got Mason Amos to play and one of the reasons we didn’t get him to play was because he was new to the team and we didn’t really get him into the system well enough,” Cone said of the La Salle-bound forward.
“We’re hoping that he learned now in the OQT and he’ll now bring that experience. When he comes into the third window, he already knows the system and is ready to play,” he added.
