KELLY Williams wasn't supposed to be here.
Making the tough decision to hang his sneakers for good two years ago, the Fil-Am forward believed that he had already achieved all he could in his colorful basketball career.
Now 40, Williams isn't just back playing for TNT Tropang Giga in the PBA, he's also back with Gilas Pilipinas.
"There's a lot of feelings that go along with it, but I'm just grateful," said the seven-time PBA champion as he was one of the six TNT players who beefed up the Philippines' 15-man pool for the February window.
It's certainly a surprising turn of events for the 2008 PBA MVP who last donned the national tri-colors more than a decade ago, particularly in the 2011 Fiba Asia Championship in Wuhan with the Rajko Toroman-coached Smart Gilas team which finished fourth.
But Williams shared that representing the country in the international stage never gets old, even for a veteran like him.
"I'm telling one of the guys recently, you still get the same nervousness, you still get the same excitement that I had years ago when I played," he said. "I've always taken great pride in wearing Philippines across my chest and being able to represent the country, to be able to be out there with these guys, especially at this stage in my career, it's amazing."
And he has one man to thank: coach Chot Reyes.
"Chot brought me on to just fill spots where everything is needed. Fortunately for me, I've been able to cover that position well throughout my career and even at this stage," he said.

Kelly Williams has been tapped along with several other PBA players to reinforce the young GIlas squad.
For Reyes, everything that involves Williams in this go round feels a little serendipitous.
It was he who recruited "Machine Gun Kelly" to play for Team Philippines way back in 2004 and after nearly two decades, their bond remained strong.
Who knew that partnership would still lead to this stint in the 2023 Fiba World Cup Asian qualifiers? A full circle moment, indeed.
"Even way back when I went down to Detroit, there was this skinny kid who could jump out of the gym and he had Filipino roots. I was preparing for my first national team stint in 2007 and I needed a couple of guys with size who could play wings and we were looking at Kelly for that, so you could imagine," Reyes reflected.
So when Reyes needed players from the Tropang Giga to answer the country's call in such short notice, he knew he had an automatic yes from Williams.
"When I asked him about this, there was absolutely no hesitation on Kelly’s part," the coach said. "Whatever it takes, if we needed him to be just a practice player, to play a couple of minutes, to play heavy minutes, to play four games in five days after four games in seven days in the PBA, he said he was ready. And that’s because I really brought Kelly over to really play for the national team."
"His career in the PBA as a pro was just kind of a progression or a by-product of that, but the main reason we brought Kelly was really to play for the national team, so he’s just staying true to that calling even now at his young age."
Williams is far from the spring chicken that Reyes tirelessly courted to play for the national team, but he just feels fortunate that despite his advanced age, he still enjoys much trust from the bench tactician.
And he plans to repay that faith the only way he knows how: to give it his all for the country.
"I think for anybody representing our country, there's a lot of pressure and there's no doubt about that. Me personally, we have a lot of great players, great bigs. But I'm just grateful that Chot gives trust in me to be able to fill those spots so that's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna play my role, do what I have to do, do what's needed, and give everything I have for the country," he said.
"I think for me to just be playing at this stage at this age, I had no idea I would be coming back to the PBA, let alone for the country. So it's just been an amazing journey for me and I'm just going to try to enjoy every minute, maximize every second that I have in my career and definitely as a Gilas Pilipinas representative."
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