QMB Is Wide Open. Pass Him The Ball, SBP
Late Thursday night, ALL-STAR’s Naveen Ganglani reported that Quentin Millora-Brown has been reclassified as a local player by FIBA. Soon after the QMB news broke, fans expressed their delight on social media, sharing their hopes that a fresh dawn was beckoning for the Philippine national team.
Me? I smiled when I saw the news, then went about my day. I didn’t even pump my fist.
If there’s anything basketball has taught me, it is to exercise emotional restraint until an outcome is completely secured. It’s one thing for Millora-Brown’s lawyers—and now, the SBP itself—to confirm that the former UP Fighting Maroon has been granted local player status. It’s another thing for said local player status to actually matter, to be worth all the emails, the sleepless nights, and the future plans of a 25-year-old cager floating in the air.
So now, the question on everyone’s mind is: When will Quentin Millora-Brown be officially invited to join the Gilas pool?
Ah, the precious Gilas pool. I hope I’m wrong here, but QMB might find it just as arduous to join our national team as it was to negotiate that nail-biting reclassification from FIBA. Of course, the prestige and the extremely guarded walls surrounding this elite squad are justified, as we can’t just let any papawis player join the team that represents country and flag. But, every once in a while, there are compelling reasons to let more athletes dip their toes into this exclusive pool.
As fate would have it, the QMB development comes just days after Gilas concluded its stint in the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup. Among the hours and hours of game footage to dissect, there’s one weakness that stands out on the defensive end: June Mar Fajardo’s drop coverage.
Rewatch the three-point shooting sprees unleashed by Chinese Taipei, New Zealand, and Australia, and you’ll see that these teams’ perimeter snipers specifically targeted JMF off pick-and-roll sets. One jump shot after another was swished off the Kraken’s inability to properly cover these shooters.
Before all the San Miguel fans get all worked up, realize that I’m taking aim at one defensive lapse, not the entirety of his game. Fajardo might go down in history as the greatest PBA player of all time, but in his recent international stints, FIBA-level shooters have exploited his less-than-impressive mobility to significantly hurt Gilas.
I’m not saying that QMB has never, ever committed a mistake in drop coverage. I’m saying that QMB, who’s 10 years younger than JMF, is better equipped at this point to get in the space of shooters coming off screens in international play. With fresher legs and less mileage on his physical anatomy, Millora-Brown currently has a higher ceiling than Fajardo as a defender on the FIBA stage.
I’m pretty confident in this basketball argument. What I’m not confident about is the willingness of the national team’s braintrust to actually extend an invitation to QMB in the near future.
Why do I say this? Because the head coach of the program has said—for more than one year, mind you—that he’s sticking to his concept of a “core 12.”
This past Wednesday, Tim Cone doubled down on this approach after Gilas’ 84-60 loss to Australia in the FIBA Asia Cup quarterfinals.
“We put this team together for the long term in trying to get them to grow together and get better,” Cone told reporters after Gilas’ exit. “If we’re just going to go ahead and change personnel, we’re back to zero again. We’re going to use this and try to make some adjustments.”
With all due respect, coach Tim, the adjustments available to Gilas will be limited to the personnel that you let inside your pool. While this limitation is something that professional teams deal with all the time, FIBA tournaments give us the leeway to tweak rosters in just about every window. So, why not take the opportunity to gradually break in some new pieces—not because some dudes are injured, but because some players have tremendous potential to thrive in the international scene?
I’m well aware that CTC called QMB a “6-foot-10 KQ” on Radyo5’s “Power and Play.” (So many initials, I know.) That compliment, however, is still not as straightforward as “We’re adding him to the Gilas pool.” Pretty please?
Heck, even the Tim Cone-coached Barangay Ginebra brings in new assets when some rotation players have done all that they could to help the team. Connect the dots further, and you’ll realize that the team governor who’s very much involved in Ginebra’s happenings is the same man who was named Gilas program director in November 2024.
So, this is not a sports writer with a special grudge against Tim Cone. (No one asked, but I was an Alaska die-hard.) This is a cautiously optimistic Pinoy hoping that CTC, boss Alfrancis Chua, SBP President Al Panlilio, and SBP Executive Director Erika Dy will address the urgency of implementing changes after disappointing losses to Chinese Taipei and the Oceania powerhouses.
This is a Gilas supporter (and, there’s no use denying it, a UP fan) who is looking at the 2027 FIBA World Cup qualifiers as an opportunity for a promising young man to mitigate some of our national squad’s weaknesses on the defensive end. And, quite possibly, bring his feathery touch and rebounding know-how to the table as well.
Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa? Quentin Millora-Brown is wide open. Pass him the ball, SBP—the clock is ticking.
