MANILA – Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings’ Gregory Slaughter makes his national men’s basketball team return after being inserted to the Gilas Pilipinas roster for the 30th Southeast Asian Games.
The Cebuano big man’s name was submitted during the manager’s meeting on Tuesday night as a medical replacement for three-point gunner Roger Pogoy, who was ruled out from the biennial event due to a back injury.
This will be the second SEA Games stint of the former Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagle. He was part of the gold medal squad in the 2011 edition of the biennial sporting event in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Slaughter was initially cut by Gilas head coach Tim Cone along with Kings teammates Earl Scottie Thompson and Arthur dela Cruz after he sustained a thumb injury while playing for Ginebra.
Slaughter, however, showed signs of recovery and even suited up when the Kings defeated San Miguel Beermen in the quarterfinals round of the 2019 PBA Governors’ Cup.
Slaughter will join Japeth Aguilar, June Mar Fajardo, Jeth Troy Rosario, Christian Standhardinger, Vic Manuel, Matthew Wright, Marcio Lassiter, Chris Ross, Kiefer Ravena, LA Tenorio, and Stanley Pringle in Gilas roster.
Gilas will kick off its campaign against Singapore at 8 p.m. tonight at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City before facing Vietnam on Friday and Myanmar on Saturday to close out the preliminaries./PN
