LADY LUCK smiled on the Philippines when it got awarded with the hosting rights to one of the three Fiba Olympic qualifying tournaments.
It wasn’t smiling so much during the drawing of teams as powerhouses France, Canada, Turkey along with Senegal and New Zealand were drawn to compete against the country’s Gilas Pilipinas in the tournament that will be held this July.
France, the fifth-ranked team in the world, comes over, bringing with it a star-studded crew led by the likes of NBA All-Star guard Tony Parker, Boris Diaw, Evan Fournier, Nicolas Batum and the “Stifle Tower” himself, Rudy Gobert.
Canada too boasts of a team stocked with current NBA players bannered by the 2015 NBA Rookie of the Year, Andrew Wiggins, Cory Joseph, Kelly Olynyk, Andrew Nicholson, Robert Sacre, Nik Stauskas, Dwight Powell and Anthony Bennett.
Turkey boasts of Ersan Ilyasova and Omer Asik while Senegal, the team that the Gilas beat for its only win in the 2014 Fiba World Cup, will be led by Gorgui Dieng.