GILAS Pilipinas coach Tim Cone said he was thrilled to see veteran PBA star June Mar Fajardo and young big man Kai Sotro play together well during the recent FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) in Riga, Latvia.
Cone felt the 6-foot-10 Fajardo gave his foreign counterparts a headache due to his solid partnership with the 7-foot-3 Sotto inside the shaded area.
"You can see they (foreign teams in FIBA OQT) built their game plan there by doubling him (Fajardo), as if he's playing in the PBA, even if we were playing seven-footers," Cone told media men during his recent post-FIBA OQT presser.
"He was more than holding his own and I think coaches, when they play against him, outside Justin (Brownlee) of course, what can they do with June Mar? They know they can't handle June Mar one-on-one, because he's a dominant force," he added.
Cone noted that Sotto's ability to shoot from the perimeter, coupled by Fajardo's inside forays gave Gilas a rare advantage that they were able to utilize to the hilt in the group stage.
"The fact he can play with Kai, that kind of puts them in a quandary with other teams, because who do you put on?" said Cone.
Fajardo scored 11 points on 5-of-6 shooting, to go along with five rebounds and three steals in the Philippines' massive 89-80 win over world No. 6 Latvia in the group stage.
Sotto had an even more impressive number after finishing with 18 points on 7-of-10 attempts, with eight rebounds, while providing the intimidating inside presence in the Philippines' first win over a European squad since the 1960 Rome Olympics.
Cone said knowing that Fajardo, the seven-time PBA Most Valuable Player can play beautiful music together with Sotto, he feels the Philippines, ranked 37th in world, would be even more competitive when 6-foot-11 AJ Edu rejoins the team after recovering from a knee injury.
"If you can just envision these two players playing comfortably with each other and then add AJ Edu and keep these two fresh, if you can envision that these guys are getting better in the system and play better with each other, how good can they become?" said Cone.
"It's really, really exciting, but like I said, this was a huge sacrifice for Kai to have to play in the wing position with June Mar because he had to play completely out of his comfort zone," he added.
The Filipinos managed to reach the semifinals in the OQT before running out of steam and falling to Brazil, 71-60, ending their Olympic hopes in the process.
Gilas takes a break for the next few months, but will return to practice this early November to prepare for the second window of the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers.
The Philippines will host New Zealand and Hong Kong in Manila.
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