Gilas Pilipinas Basketball

As Gilas Pilipinas concluded its 2021 FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers third window campaign with another win over Korea, head coach Tab Baldwin made his latest assessment of how vastly teenage prodigy Kai Sotto has improved.

The 7-foot-3 center’s participation in the qualifiers held in Pampanga offered fans and pundits alike a first-hand look of how far he’s come in terms of development years after starting his training overseas to pursue his NBA dream.

The Gilas mentor said one of the aspects of the game the 19-year-old impressed him the most was Sotto’s toughness.

“It’s good that he has that toughness. I’m really impressed with how tough he is. I did not expect that,” Baldwin admitted.

“His competitive spirit, it’s really admirable. He fits into the team extremely well. He enjoys being with us.”

In the three games Sotto has played, he averaged 9.3 points and 7 rebounds in close to 19 minutes per outing, while shooting 37.5 percent from the field and 76.9 percent from the free-throw line.

Throughout the window, the young big man battled more experienced naturalized players Ra Gu Na (Ricardo Ratliffe) from Korea and Lester Prosper from Indonesia.

He was able to make some highlights for himself, showing the ability to score around the rim, post-up, and put the ball on the floor.

But Sotto also had some difficulties defending his stronger and more physically-imposing counterparts, but Baldwin mentioned it will be a learning curve for him.

“Kai is definitely finding his way at this level, though he’s a young kid who has not played a lot of elite level basketball, and probably most of the elite ball he has played has been over at the (United States) where the physicality of the game is a lot different,” Baldwin shared, adding the former Ateneo juniors MVP will have to fine-tune his game.

“So, Kai’s going to have to learn a little bit more about his finesse game. I think that he’s trying to go a power game and he’s not a power player yet. But it’s good that he has that mentality.”

Sotto signed with Australian NBL club Adelaide 36ers for the 2021-22 season, and is eligible to join the NBA Draft next summer.

Watch Kai Sotto Highlights vs South Korea

Baldwin concluded Sotto is learning at an “extremely fast” rate considering he joined the team practices late and had to complete quarantine when he arrived earlier in the month.

“Both individually and systems-wise, he’s still learning. But what a smart kid, he is picking up things extremely fast. We are all impressed with how quickly he’s learned the basics of our system without maybe learning the nuances of it,” he said.

“I think for all of the players, going up against Serbia and the Dominican Republic is going to be a great learning experience.”

Written by Levi Verora Jr.

Photos from FIBA