ADD Rain or Shine superstar Paul Lee to the list of injured players in the pool of Gilas Pilipinas.
After spearheading the Elasto Painters to the Philippine Basketball Association Commissioner’s Cup championship last week and winning the finals Most Valuable Player, Lee said he needed to take some time off as his nagging knee injury has reoccured.
In just a span of a week, Lee became the third member of the Gilas pool to suffer an injury.
The injury that hounded Lee early in the PBA season and forced him to miss most of the Philippine Cup is once again bothering him, forcing him to leave the team.
Gilas had already started its preparation for the coming FIBA Qualifying Tournament in July and the team needs as many bodies as it can to be able to assemble the best possible line-up.
But last week, Barangay Ginebra star center Greg Slaughter and Talk ‘N Text wingman Matt Ganuelas-Rosser were both ruled out of the Gilas pool due to various injuries that will force them to be out for a certain period.
Sharp-shooter Marcio Lassiter recently joined the team in practice and naturalized import Andray Blatche is set to join the training sessions anytime this week. Both will be much needed firepowers for the Nationals.
Also expected to step up for the team are amateur standouts Bobby Ray Parks, Kiefer Ravena and Kevin Ferrer, who are all part of the pool as well. They will have a golden opportunity to thrive and impress coach Baldwin as any of them might be chosen to fill in the void left by some of the injured Gilas mainstays.