The Gilas Pilipinas basketball squad, which will compete in Cambodia for the Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) basketball gold medal, will be made up of the 15 athletes now gathered at Calamba, Laguna.

The top 10 PBA players that can be chosen for the final 12-member SEA Games roster include naturalized player Justin Brownlee and teammates Christian Standhardinger and Jeremiah Gray of Barangay Ginebra.

They are accompanied by Arvin Tolentino of NorthPort, Brandon Ganuelas Rosser of NLEX, CJ Perez, Chris Ross, and Marcio Lassiter of San Miguel, Calvin Oftana of TNT, Aaron Black and Chris Newsome of Meralco, and Calvin, Chris, and Marcio Lassiter of San Miguel.

Mason Amos of Ateneo, Jerom Lastimosa of Adamson, Ben and Michael Phillips of La Salle, and Jerom Lastimosa of Adamson are the other four college athletes up for selection.

When the 12-man lineup is presented to the SEA Games sports committee on May 7, the pool that once had 28 names will only have 15 names available because national coach Chot Reyes said that he no longer anticipates any additional arrivals.

June Mar Fajardo, Mikey Williams, Jamie Malonzo, Stanley Pringle, Japeth Aguilar, Scottie Thompson, RR Pogoy, Poy Erram, Raymond Almazan, Kevin Alas, Schonny Winston, Kevin Quiambao, and AJ Edu, who is based in the US, are the original pool’s unavailable players for a variety of reasons.

Even though there are few alternatives for lineups, things could have been worse: Gilas had to make due with just 10 players during weekly practices, so Reyes had to enlist the help of a volunteer in order to have enough for scrimmages.

Lassiter, Lastimosa, Gray, and Tolentino’s arrival gives Gilas a little more flexibility in putting together a team with the mission of regaining basketball supremacy in Southeast Asia, although Reyes is unsure at this time.

Reyes cautioned that it is difficult to predict until we see the final selections and noted that the lax SEA Games eligibility requirements allow teams like Indonesia, Thailand, and even Vietnam to include as many athletes who were raised abroad as they choose.