With just ten days left before the FIBA World Cup opens, Gilas Pilipinas finally has its full complement of players in its 16-man pool after Kai Sotto was given the go-ahead to join team practices by two teams of doctors, Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas president Al Panlilio announced on Tuesday.
Panlilio attended the closed-door Gilas practice on Sunday night and said that Scottie Thompson, who fractured his hand in Europe last month, has also returned.
"Scottie is fit," Panlilio said during the weekly forum of the Philippine Sportswriters Association. "(It's) just a matter of getting back the groove of playing basketball. He did play that night.
"Kai also played. And just to share, our doctors spoke -- the doctors of Kai and of SBP -- and he's been cleared to play, so that's good news.
"We're looking forward to seeing him play during the friendlies."
Panlilio was referring to three tune-up games Gilas will play against Ivory Coast, Montenegro and Mexico on Aug. 18, 20 and 21 respectively, which the coaching staff will use to decide on the final 12.
Sotto had been rehabilitating his back after he was injured in last month's NBA Summer League and was a sporadic attendee of Gilas practices.
Coach Chot Reyes had earlier told ESPN that the SBP doctors had found him fit even as Sotto's camp claimed they had an MRI result that showed he needed to do rehabilitation work first before joining practices.
Panlilio said even though SBP was not able to see the MRI result, doctors have given Sotto the green light, adding: "We didn't see any MRI results.
"What we wanted to do to put closure and move forward and really just focus on the games is our doctors met. And they cleared him.
"Obviously what Kai needs to do now in the next ten days is improve his fitness. That's one aspect that he needs to work on. He was working hard the other night.
"You could see that he was getting tired at some point. But that's an area that he needs to work on these next few days. But he's cleared to play."
Gilas will open the World Cup on Aug. 25 against Dominican Republic at the Philippine Arena, and Panlilio said that with 28,000 tickets sold so far, ticket sales are on track to break the all-time attendance record for a World Cup game of 32,616 set in 1994.
"We're really confident that we will surpass that," shared the SBP chief.
"In fact, what I want to see is (for us to) breach the 50,000 mark. That's the reason why we still decided to put a game in Philippine Arena. That's the objective.
"We'd like to put the Philippines on the map in terms of FIBA attendance."