Japeth eager to showcase stuff in PBA
By RONNIE NATHANIELSZ | 02/23/2009 7:36 PM
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Former Ateneo standout Japeth Aguilar, who now plays back-up center for the Western Kentucky University, is eager to showcase his stuff in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).
His father Peter Aguilar, a former PBA player himself, said he would visit his son in Kentucky on February 25 to see how he is doing.
The elder Aguilar said Japeth was “playing okay” despite his limited playing time. Japeth had earlier won the WKU pre-season slam dunk competition.
Aguilar said he wants his son to play for the Philippine National Team coached by the respected Yeng Guiao, whom he had previously committed to have Japeth tryout for the all-pro team.
He said Japeth is expected to be in Manila on the last week of May and was hoping to play for the country in the Southeast Asian Basketball Association qualifying tournament which hopefully would take place after his tryout.
Aguilar disclosed that a friend and teammate of Japeth was also inviting his son to play in Europe. He, however, said Japeth would much rather enter the PBA Annual Draft in August and see action before hometown fans.
Already several teams are eyeing the gangling center who is the first natural-born Filipino to play in the US NCAA Division I.
Burger King manager Mikee Romero and coach Guiao are hoping they will win the lottery for the first draft pick since they acquired the Red Bull 2009-2010 draft rights in a trade so they could pick Aguilar.
The same hope was expressed by Barangay Ginebra’s Robert Non who said the league’s most popular team needs a reliable, young big man because of the on-and-off injury to Eric Menk.
