ZAVIER Lucero and Rhenz Abando are no longer under consideration for Gilas Pilipinas in the FIBA Asia Cup 2025.
National coach Tim Cone said Lucero and Abando were not able to participate in the Gilas practices. Lucero’s status of whether he can play as a local under FIBA rules is also still up in the air.
“Because [Abando] hasn’t been able to come in and really practice with us, he is not (under consideration),” said Cone after Gilas Pilipinas’ 103-98 win over the Macau Black Bears in their send-off game.
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“And Lucero, we never got a go-ahead from FIBA to put him in as a local. We are still checking on that,” said Cone.
Lucero, Abando, Troy Rosario, and RJ Abarrientos were included in the ‘long list’ submitted to FIBA prior to the Asia Cup, making them eligible to be part of the Final 12 for the Jeddah showpiece.
That leaves Rosario and Abarrientos as the two players eligible among the four that were added to the pool.
Cone said the two Barangay Ginebra players were an integral part of the team’s preparations since they were still depleted when June Mar Fajardo, Cjay Perez, and Calvin Oftana were still competing in the PBA Philippine Cup finals.
“Right now, it’s been RJ and Troy and they’ve been with us the first moment we started practicing. I don’t know how we’ve gone through this last two weeks without them because we were practicing with seven, eight guys. Without Troy and RJ, we’ll be down to six, five. They were really, really crucial to our preparation.”
“They are locked in to what we do so we will see,” said Cone.
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