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The Philippines men's national basketball team played at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup held in Spain. The 24-team tournament began on August 30, and the winner automatically qualifies for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Philippines qualified for the World Cup by virtue of the silver medal won by their 2013 FIBA Asia Championship squad. The Filipinos were considered as an underdog in the tournament, but shocked and impressed the whole world including FIBA officials because of their courage, passion and enthusiasm that was shown by the squad. Team Philippines were eliminated on the preliminary round with a 1-4 standing, but almost of all their losses were close games and was won by a small margin. This was the first time in 40 years since the Philippine national squad made an appearance and won a game in the World Cup. FIBA secretary general Patrick Baumann and other officials of the organization cheered for the team and said that they will be back on the next World Cup with no doubt. ==Roster== On January 31, 2014, a Yahoo! article reported that the Philippines want JaVale McGee and Andray Blatche to be naturalized as a Filipino for them to be able to represent the country in the upcoming World Cup. Gilas Pilipinas coach Chot Reyes confirmed the development. Antipolo representative Robbie Puno filed House Bills 3784 and 3783, the naturalization bills of JaVale McGee and Andray Blatche. On June 11, 2014, Blatche officially became a Filipino citizen despite of being born on New York, President Benigno Aquino III signed a law declaring Blatche as a Filipino citizen. Blatche will play for the national squad as a naturalized player, there is a requirement that there should be only one naturalized player that can play as a national team member of any country. Greg Slaughter, Jared Dillinger, Marcio Lassiter and Paul Lee were invited to join the training pool of the national squad and to be part of the 18-man pool, Lassiter and Slaughter expressed gratitude for the decision but declined the invitation because they think that the 12-man roster that played on the 2013 FIBA Asia Championship are the ones who are deserving to play because they worked hard and helped the team to advance to the World Cup. The 18-man squad was decreased to an 16-man squad but they later on added Jay Washington to the pool, to form an 17-man squad. Larry Fonacier backed up at the training pool because of being injury-plagued,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/371731/sports/basketball/gilas-pilipinas-suffers-blow-loses-fonacier-from-pool )〕 his two-year-old problem. The 17-man squad was decreased to 16 as Chot Reyes announced the 16-man squad. On August 18, 2014, the final 12-man roster was announced. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「2014 Philippine FIBA Basketball World Cup team」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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