By REYNALD MAGALLON
Rain or Shine came into the Rookie Draft boasting two first round picks. The team had plenty of options from a pool of overseas talents coming home and the decorated amateur stars in the collegiate ranks and leagues outside the PBA.
The Elasto Painters did what was expected from them, at least for their first pick in the first round.
ROS selected Caelan Tiongson as its seventh overall pick, but then threw a wild curveball in selecting an unheralded Fil-Swedish guard Felix Lemetti on their eighth pick and ahead of the more popular names in Evan Nelle, Mark Nonoy and even former Gilas guard Jerom Lastimosa.
Apart from a couple of highlight reels on Youtube where the 6-foot-1 guard was seen drilling long bombs and breaking down his defenders for a basket, there was basically nothing online that could show how potent Lemetti is.
But the Elasto Painters coaching staff did their homework.
Lemetti turned out to have impressive credentials, having started in one of the NCAA Division 1 schools in the US, formerly a part of Sweden’s national youth team and has been playing professionally before making the move to the country.
“We are taking our chances based on what we saw in practice and also looking at his credentials. He was starting in a Division I school, so you cannot go wrong with that,” Guiao said of Lemetti, who impressed him during his workouts with the team.
In Sweden’s second-tier league Superettan, he averaged 22.2 points, 6.5 assists and 5.6 rebounds in the 34 games he played for Kfum Fryshuset in the 2023-24 season. He had a season-high of 35 points built on seven triples.
According to Guiao, Lemetti, who traces his roots from Mindoro, could become a solid point guard in the league which would give ROS flexibility on the backcourt.
“We felt that he had potential noong nakita namin siya sa practice namin,” said Guiao. “A true point guard, solid point guard. He can score, and at the same time, he can command yung team niya. We are looking for somebody like that.”
Guiao said Lemetti can share the point guard chores with Anton Asistio and Andrei Caracut while also allowing him to play Adrian Nocum more on the two-spot
“Si Adrian Nocum I think pag pumasok si Felix we can move him to the two spot para di masyadong masikip yung point guard so we can still give them their minutes,” he explained.
