AFTER weeks of sitting down on the sidelines and watching, Cebuano big man Greg Slaughter will finally strut his stuff in the PBA D-League for the NLEX Road Warriors after he got clearance from the league yesterday.
The PBA received what it had been asking for for many weeks later, a letter from the Bureau of Immigration that certifies that the former University of the Visayas stalwart is a Filipino after he took his oath as a Filipino when he was 17 years old.
“There’s no more legal obstacle for Slaughter to play as a Fil-foreigner in the PBA D-League,” said PBA commissioner Chito Salud in a statement.
This development means that Slaughter will be able to play for the Road Warriors tomorrow when they face off against the unbeaten, Big Chill Superchargers. However, that is still up in the air as Slaughter is still committed to play for the Ateneo Blue Eagles which is fighting for the championship in the Philippine Collegiate Champions League against the University of Santo Tomas Growling Tigers.
Slaughter’s absence has been hardly felt by the Road Warriors which is currently on a 22-game winning streak dating back to last conference. With a star-studded lineup that features some of the best amateur players in the land, NLEX has strung up five straight wins to lead the tournament with a 5-0 (win-loss) record.
In the first game yesterday, the Cagayan Rising Suns defeated the Cebuana Lhuillier Gems, 86-82. /Correspondent Jonas Panerio