A WEEK before the Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) for the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, attention by Filipino fans will not be solely on the Philippine national team but also on the other participating nations. Save for New Zealand, every other team is stocked with players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) and from the various professional European leagues.
The Philippines’s first opponent, France, will have a couple of top-tier NBA players in the San Antonio Spurs’ Tony Parker and the Charlotte Hornets’ Nicolas Batum. But local cage fans will want to keep an eye out for point guard Nando de Colo, who is a former San Antonio Spur but is now playing for CSKA Moscow. The 6-foot-5 de Colo has been tabbed to be France’s next leader.
New Zealand, the Philippines’s other opponent in Group B, might be devoid of any NBA players (since Oklahoma City Thunder Steven Adams is not in uniform) but they do have 6-foot-9 center Isaac Fotu and 6-foot-4 small forward Tai Webster to lead the Tall Blacks.
Canada is another team that will bear watching. They are supposed to be one of the heavily favored sides, but with the nonparticipation of key players like Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and Nik Stauskas, among others, their chances of booking a ticket to Rio has taken a huge hit. Although Coach Jay Triano and Team Manager Steve Nash are hoping that some of their veterans will change their minds, right now Team Canada will be led by Corey Joseph, who is Kyle Lowry’s primary backup at the Toronto Raptors. They will also count on Dillon Brooks, who starred for the University of Oregon, the alma mater of former pros Luke Jackson (Philadelphia 76ers), current Chicago Bulls guard Aaron Brooks and former Talk ’N Text import Ivan Johnson.
Senegal will be led by 6-foot-9 forward Maurice N’Dour, who plays for Spanish basketball champions Real Madrid, and 6-foot-11 forward-center Ibrahima Thomas, who is a strong inside operator.
And last, for Turkey, they will have New Orleans center Omer Asik whose statistics are down playing alongside power forward Anthony Davis, who gets the lion’s share of shots in the paint. Asik came of NBA age after he left the Chicago Bulls for the Houston Rockets during the 2012-2013 season. He left two years later to join the Pelicans, but has clearly struggled without many touches. Asik played a significant role for Turkey when it finished second to the United States during the 2010 International Basketball Federation World Championships.