Bol ready to roll with Tropang 5G

TNT Tropang 5G flexed the size and firepower it will be packing to defend its title in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Season 50 Commissioner’s Cup with the arrival of reinforcement Bol Bol.

Tropang 5G team manager Jojo Lastimosa led the welcome party that greeted the 7-foot-3 South Sudanese at the airport early Thursday.

Pictures and video clips of the son of the late National Basketball Association (NBA) player Manute Bol’s arrival were posted on the team’s official Facebook page.

Bol will have big shoes to fill after original reinforcement, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon, making him unavailable for TNT’s title-retention bid in the mid-season tournament kicking off on 11 March.

TNT took advantage of the tournament’s unlimited height for imports and signed the former NBA star, the biggest name in this batch of reinforcements.

His arrival gives the Tropang 5G the ceiling it lacked, being one of the smallest teams in the league.

Bol is the 44th overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft by the Miami Heat. He was immediately traded to the Denver Nuggets. He spent one season with the Orlando Magic in 2022 before signing with the Suns in 2023.  

Appearing in 202 NBA games, he averaged 6.2 points and 3.5 rebounds while shooting 54.5 percent from the field.

TNT won the title last year at the expense of Barangay Ginebra behind resident reinforcement Hollis-Jefferson.

The three-time Best Import winner, however, suffered an Achilles’ heel injury last December while playing for Meralco in the East Asia Super League.

With Hollis-Jefferson out for at least a year, the Tropang 5G went big and landed a deal with Bol.

Meanwhile, guest team Macau Black Bears will parade a 7-foot-6 Sam Deguara and Tony Mitchell as imports in a bid to win the midseason conference title.

Both Deguara and Mitchell suited up for the Black Bears in the East Asia Super League Home and Away Season 3, but hardly made an impact as they still finished winless in six games in Group B.

Like the Bay Area Dragons a couple of years ago, the PBA is allowing the Black Bears to enter two imports in their roster. They, however, can only see action one at a time.

If the original import choice suffers an injury, the team will have to relegate him to the injury/reserved list for him to become eligible for reactivation.

But once the team reactivates the original choice, it can no longer bring back the second import should another injury occur.