With Kai Sotto, Gilas can take on anyone — Cone

MANILA, Philippines — If you were to ask Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tim Cone, if injured big man Kai Sotto was healthy enough, the Philippines has “an opportunity to compete with anybody in the world.”

The 7-foot-3 behemoth has been a key part of Gilas in past tournaments, but he has been sidelined since the start of the year due to a torn ACL.

Sotto had surgery back in January and is still recovering.

Cone, in an interview following Gilas’ 103-98 win over the Macau Black Bears in their tuneup Monday evening, said that he would have wanted Sotto to be part of the squad in the upcoming FIBA Asia Cup.

Having the size and skill set of Sotto on the floor is a big boost for the national team, which is grouped with Chinese Taipei, Iraq and World No. 22 New Zealand in the Asia Cup’s preliminary round.

“I just think that Kai gives us an opportunity to compete with anybody in the world. Honestly, I just really feel that I think we can compete with anybody in the world,” he told reporters.

“Maybe not the Dream Team, you know. Maybe, or maybe not, but at least I feel like we can compete with anybody in the world and certainly in Asia,” he added.

But with Sotto out, the veteran mentor acknowledged that it “poses a lot of problems for the team.”

Still, Cone stressed that Gilas can still be “a really great team without him at this point.”

“I certainly love to have him though, but he's going to Japan to continue his rehab. Hoping he'll be back in time in October to play and if he's back in October to play, maybe he’ll be available for us in November in the World Cup qualifiers,” he said.

“You don't want to mess around with an ACL injury. So whatever time he needs, we're certainly going to give it to him."

Gilas already arrived in Jeddah Thursday morning, as posted by the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas on Facebook.

As it stands, the Gilas 12 in Jeddah are Kevin Quiambao, Chris Newsome, Jamie Malonzo, Dwight Ramos, June Mar Fajardo, Japeth Aguilar, AJ Edu, Scottie Thompson, Justin Brownlee, CJ Perez, Carl Tamayo and the injury-hit Calvin Oftana.

Fajardo, Edu, Thompson and Tamayo are all expected to share minutes in the frontcourt along with Brownlee.