WHILE it now has an abundance of players in its backcourt, TNT KaTropa has a shortage in its frontcourt at the start of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup.
The Texters, who have added Terrence Romeo to its guard rotation, will open their campaign on April 22 against GlobalPort without Kelly Williams, who is recovering from an undisclosed injury in his upper body.
The TNT star slotman has been sidelined since the Texters resumed training camp and is out for four more weeks, meaning he will miss the first few games of the midseason tournament.
“Hindi ko alam yung specific (injury) eh, but he’ll be out for some time,” TNT coach Nash Racela said after practice on Monday.
Williams had been in shape and flaunting his vintage form since returning from a knee injury a few years ago, but now has to deal with this latest setback.
Racela expects import Jeremy Tyler to carry more of the load and hold the fort in the absence of Williams.
“That’s an expectation from all the imports, ‘di ba, na if they can play forty, forty-five minutes, give you twenty and twenty every game, eh di that’s always welcome, ‘di ba?” Racela said.
Williams was one of five TNT players who were either absent or didn’t suit up in practice on Monday along with Jayson Castro, Jericho Cruz, and two other injured players with minor injuries in Anthony Semerad and Yousef Taha.
“Always incomplete (ang practices namin), pero siguro the good thing lang now is we have more players, so even if you miss a number of them, we still have twelve to fifteen, so it doesn’t really affect the practice much,” Racela said.
“Yun lang yung struggle with practices so far, but at the same time, it gives them time to recover and get stronger, so hopefully it works out,” he added.
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