Dwight Ramos has taken the point guard role for Gilas Pilipinas following the absence of Scottie Thompson, but it was a job that isn’t entirely strange to the 6-foot-4 cager.

Although he has been playing as a two-guard for most of his career, even with his stint in the Japan B.League with mother team, Levanga Hokkaido, Ramos said that he feels his past experiences with the national team, particularly under former coach Tab Baldwin, has prepared him for the job.

Ramos was part of Baldwin’s Gilas program back in 2021 where he was utilized more of a point guard by the veteran coach.

“Couple of years ago with coach Tab, he was preparing me for this role so I just kept on working on it and I got a chance now to do that so I just got to do my best,” said Ramos who played the the starting point guard role in Gilas’ friendly match against Taiwan Mustangs.

Gilas head coach Tim Cone already expressed his confidence that Ramos, along with CJ Perez and Chris Newsome, can run the point and execute the triangle offense. 

He added that his system doesn’t really rely on a pure point guard and combo guards like the three could potentially run the system with relative ease.

Ramos actually echoed the same sentiment, noting that he doesn’t necessarily need to make the play but just ensure that the ball is moving around and finding the best options possible in every possession.

“The point guard job is not like I'm keeping the ball the whole time. So as long as I keep passing the ball, moving the ball around, that’s just kinda the job of the point guard,” he added.

If there’s something that Ramos is adjusting to, however, it was his game shape since he was coming off an orbital fracture that sidelined him for a couple of months.

“A little bit out of shape, I gotta do some extra running after practice and stuff. It feels good out there to be playing again. I gotta get used to the contact. It's good that we had this game,” said Ramos.

Ramos and the rest of Gilas hope to reach their peaks in time for the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Riga where they are set to face Latvia and Georgia in the preliminary group. In preparation, the Nationals are already in Turkey and set to play its national team before going to Poland to play another tuneup game.