According to veteran sports insider Snow Badua, Gilas Pilipinas will play a tune-up game against the Macau Black Bears.
Preparation for FIBA Asia Cup
From Snow’s post last June 13, he mentioned that the squad who’s currently participating in The Asian Tournament, will be one of the warm up games for the Tim Cone mentored squad.
Their match is said to be scheduled in the last week of July. Considering that the FIBA Asia Cup tournament will begin on August 5 and will last until 17, this is indeed a good test for the Philippine National team to get a good feel for an international competition.
It can be recalled that last June 2024, Gilas fought another asian ball club in the name of Taiwan Mustangs as one of their tune up games before competing in the Olympic Qualifiers in Latvia.
A Way Inside The PBA?!
Aside from giving Gilas a good warm up game, Snow also included in his report that this action from the Black Bears is a way for them to show their eagerness and willingness to buy an existing franchise in the PBA.
The Macau Black Bears have connections in the NBA and if ever it gets the green light from the league, this can be a great way for the PBA to improve considering they’ll hit 50 years come next season.
In the past years, we’ve seen guest teams participate in import laden conferences of the PBA. In 2022 we saw the Bay Area Dragons march their way in the Commissioner’s Cup. And during the 2024-25 Commissioner’s Cup, the Hong Kong Eastern reached the playoffs but got eliminated in the quarterfinals by the eventual champs, TNT.
