The support for the ideal preparation for the country’s participation in the FIBA Asia Championships continues to snowball after Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) owners agreed to extend the upcoming Commissioner’s Cup while rescheduling the season-ending Governor’s Cup.
This was announced by PBA commissioner Chito Salud through the league’s official Twitter site.
“The PBA team owners have agreed to make way for the FIBA Asia tournament by transferring the third conference of the current 2013 season from the original May-July schedule to August to October. To counter the negative effects on the member-teams of the resulting protracted break between conferences, the second conference will be extended by adopting the format of the recently concluded Philippine Cup,” said Salud.
“This means that the second conference will be finished by the last week of May, instead of April 28. As a result of these adjustments, Gilas Pilipinas will have two months of unhampered truing as a team,” stated Salud, who was elated with the recent developments which will be finalized during a board meeting tomorrow.
“As I have said, when good men reason together, the outcome is inevitably beneficial to everyone. In this case, our owners placed national interest above all considerations. I am so proud of the PBA,” he further added.
With this, Gilas Pilipinas head coach Chot Reyes has roughly two months to intensively prepare the squad in its mission to gain one of the three berths for the 2014 World Cup which is at stake in this tournament.
Reyes also bared that he will announce the team’s pool tomorrow as well.