GILAS Pilipinas went another man down after Jamie Malonzo begged off from playing in Window 2 of the Fiba World Cup Asian qualifiers.
In a message to reporters, coach Tim Cone said the controversial forward was invited to join the Gilas camp for crunch qualifiers at home against New Zealand on February 26 and Australia on March 1 but was in the US and therefore unavailable.
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Malonzo, a former player of Cone at Barangay Ginebra who had a protracted stint in the Japan B.League, was one of the heroes of the Norman Black-led Gilas team that retained the Southeast Asian Games gold medal in Thailand last December.
He is the third player from Cone's compact Gilas pool to become unavailable after Kai Sotto, who is coming off a long ACL injury layoff, and Quentin Millora Brown, who failed to come to terms on a new contract with the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP).
With the three out and overseas-based players AJ Edu, Carl Tamayo and Kevin Quiambao yet to arrive, the Gilas pool was reduced to nine for Tuesday's practice, the only addition being Dwight Ramos.
Gilas called up the Converge pair of Justine Baltazar and Juan Gomez de Liano and asked Ginebra's Troy Rosario and FEu youngster Montell Shelton to join the training at the Upper Deck Gym in Pasig City.
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