Kevin Quiambao to join Gilas Pilipinas in Doha preps for FIBA Asia Cup, Cone says
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Kevin Quiambao is expected to join Gilas Pilipinas in Doha as the national team prepares for the February window of the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers and the FIBA Asia Cup in August.
Quiambao suffered a right ankle injury in his Korean Basketball League debut earlier this month and returned to action on Tuesday.
"He'll be with us in Doha and the trip," Cone said on Wednesday.
"He's another guy we will take a look at, talk to the trainers and see if he needs to be load management as well. He needs to be held back at times, but right now he's telling us that he's ready to go 100 percent. So that's the word we got."
While Quiambao will join in Gilas' Doha run, Cone said Japeth Aguilar will miss it due to personal matters. However, the latter will still play in the February window as the team expects him in Taiwan.
The Doha trip will have a series of friendly games and Cone expects these to still be hard despite being assured of a slot in the FIBA Asia Cup.
"That's the whole point of it. We want it hard because this is about prep," Cone said.
"Honestly, if we were not qualified, then probably we wouldn't do the Doha trip because we want to focus on Taiwan and New Zealand and try to make sure we play our best during those games. But we are qualified, and so we're not concerned so much about the qualifications now as much as we are concerned about the actual FIBA Asia tournament. So, we're going to use this time as a chance to prepare for the FIBA Asia."
Cone also revealed that Kai Sotto will be out for the qualifiers and the FIBA Asia Cup due to his ACL injury.
The February window of the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers will see Gilas go against Chinese Taipei and New Zealand in away games.
—GMA Integrated News