By REYNALD MAGALLON
The name of 6-foot-7 forward Justin Baltazar easily stood out in a guard heavy pool for the PBA Season 49 rookie draft although this year’s batch of aspirants also offers plenty of big names and talents – some of which already tried and tested in leagues overseas.
Baltazar, who is applying for the draft for the second time after withdrawing his application last year, led the 70 PBA hopefuls for the July 14 proceedings in the list released by the league on Friday, July 5.
The Pampanga Giant Lanters big man in the MPBL is keen on finally making the jump to the big league especially with Converge, where his benefactor Delta Pineda is a team official, picking first in this year’s draft.
While Baltazar could be the best big man in the pool, arguably the best available talent in this year’s draft is 6-foot-2 Fil-American Sedrick Barefield, who just like Baltazar is taking another shot at making it to the big league after missing out on last year’s draft.
Barefield, 27, once played in the NBA G-League with Oklahoma City Blue before spending most of his pro-career as an import in the Taiwan league and once also became part of the Bay Area Dragons.
Like Barefield also providing experience from his stints from overseas is the 32-year-old, 6-foot-4 forward Caelan Tiongson who played for Alab Pilipinas in the ABL and numerous teams in Taiwan.
Talking about homegrown talents that boast plenty of overseas experience though, guard RJ Abarrientos and Dave Ildefonso are both coming back home to play in the PBA after their stints in the Korean Basketball League.
Other notable names in the pool are La Salle’s champion backcourt duo of Evan Nelle and Mark Nonoy along with fellow Green Archers Ben Phillips, Jonel Policarpio and Francis Escandor, Ateneo’s high-flying forward Kai Ballungay, UP’s CJ Cansino and CJ Catapusan and Adamson’s Jerom Lastimosa.
NCAA schools are also well represented with guys like Paolo Hernandez, Peter Alfaro, Kurt Reyson,and Jielo Razon among the few in the mix.
