Lamar Roberson (Photo courtesy of HaylettSports website)
MANILA – The Balanga Chooks will parade a second American reinforcement for the FIBA 3x3 Bucharest Challenger to fill in the void left by Alvin Pasaol.
Balanga acquired the services of six-foot-eight forward Lamar Roberson to backstop fellow foreign player Travis Franklin and locals Karl Dehesa and Chris de Chavez for the qualifier to the FIBA 3x3 World Tour Debrecen Masters.
Roberson is not new to European basketball as he already had five-on-five basketball stints in Slovakia, Switzerland, Germany, and Luxembourg after going undrafted in the 2010 NBA Draft.
The development assured that Balanga will be complete come the Bucharest Challenger.
Roberson is actually Franklin’s childhood friend, and they even played together in college at Louisiana-Lafayette.
"He will be a great replacement. I'm excited to see what he can do. It will be fun. We're ready to rock and roll," said Franklin, who helped make the acquisition possible.
"Malaking bagay na Travis has played with Lamar. Yung skills ni Lamar is complementary sa mga players natin that will go to Romania (It’s a huge thing that Travis has played with Lamar, whose skills complement those of our players who will go to Romania)," added Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas 3x3 league commissioner Eric Altamirano.
Balanga will go through a qualifying draw to get the right to enter the main tournament.
Balanga will battle Colorado City at 3:20 p.m. Saturday before taking on Kochenevo at 4:40 p.m.
The top team in the draw will join the New York Harlem and Edmonton in Pool D. (PNA)
