The fate of Kai Sotto, who left for the United States last night, is still up in the air.
Ignite head coach Brian Shaw is unsure when the 7’3” Sotto will be able to rejoin Team Ignite once he gets to Orlando Florida.
Shaw said this after Ignite pulled off 113-105 triumph over Raptors 905 for their third straight overall victory in the NBA G League season at the AdentHealth Arena in Orlando, Florida.
“Right now, I’m just concerned about the guys that are here, and coaching them and we’ll see what happens when we get to that point,” said Shaw.
The 18-year-old Sotto has gone back to the US since he could no longer play for the Gilas Pilipinas national men’s basketball team.
The coming campaign of Gilas Pilipinas in Qatar for the final window of the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers has been called off.
The Saudi Basketball Federation was forced to cancel the third window in Doha, Qatar and in Manama, Bahrain because of travel restrictions due to the rising coronavirus cases in the region.
Because of this Sotto is set to miss as much as 11 game in the first month of the season.
According to the protocols which has been set by the NBA last season, a player must have four negative RT-PCR results for four consecutive days before he can enter the bubble.
Last Friday, FIBA Asia Executive Director Hagop Khajirian said in a letter to the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas that Philippines will again re-host the final window of the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers with Lebanon.
“Fixing the dates of the ‘windows to be created’ under this unexpected and extraordinary situation will still need about 10 days to be finalized,” said Khajirian in his statement.
There are four national federations which have already expressed their support to FIBA to host one or more groups in their country to play the matches that were affected, according to Khajirian.
Qatar was supposed to host of Groups A, B, and E games from February 17 to 23.
Group A consists of the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand; B composes of Chinese-Taipei, Japan, Malaysia, and China; while E has Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.