page_title: June Mar Fajardo
section_title: International career
hierarchical_section_title: June Mar Fajardo / International career
caption_attribution_description: English: Gilas Pilipinas
context_page_description: June Mar S. Fajardo is a Filipino professional basketball player for the San Miguel Beermen of the Philippine Basketball Association. He is also known by his nickname "The Kraken” for his extraordinary size and finesse against opposing big men.
  Born in Compostela, he transferred with his parents to Pinamungajan at an early age, where he spent most of his younger and teen years. He played center for the University of Cebu Webmasters in the CESAFI and for the San Miguel Beermen in the ASEAN Basketball League before being selected as the first overall in the 2012 PBA draft by Petron Blaze Boosters. Despite his young age, Fajardo showed great potential and has been dubbed by local sports analysts as the Future of Philippine basketball. During his rookie season, he earned a silver medal playing Men's basketball at the 2013 FIBA Asia Championship for Team Philippines. He was also selected to the All-Rookie Team and Second Mythical Team.
context_section_description: Fajardo was chosen to be part of the Smart Gilas 2.0 team, later known as Gilas Pilipinas, that was built for the 2014 World Championships. After months of training that includes trips and scrimmages to Lithuania and New Zealand, Fajardo was included in the final 12-man lineup that would compete in the 2013 FIBA Asia Championship, the qualifier for the 2014 World Championships. In his first game in international competition, Fajardo scored 2 points, grabbed 2 rebounds, and was called for 4 personal fouls in less than 9 minutes of action against Saudi Arabia. He then only scored a total of 1 point in his next 6 games. Ultimately,  Gilas Pilipinas finished with a silver medal and automatically qualified for next year's World Championships.
  When the Gilas Pilipinas prepared for the 2014 FIBA World Cup, he was again called up to be part of the training pool.
  He was also part of the Gilas team which played in Wuhan, China for the 5th FIBA Asia Cup. The team won the Bronze medal. However, he was almost a non factor as he was still adjusting to the international game and style of play.
  After the FIBA Asia Cup, the Gilas Training Pool headed to Miami to kick start their long preparations for the 2014 World Cup and the 2014 Asian Games.
  The Gilas team played several tune up games in Miami against Pro Am teams. Clearly it was observed by many that he was still struggling but showed some good signs during their first tune up match.
  After the training camp in Miami, the Gilas Training Pool then travelled to Europe to continue their workouts. There they also participated in several friendly matches in Spain against an All star team composed of several players from the Spanish basketball league. From there the team went to Antibes, France wherein they played against several nationals teams such as France, Australia, and Ukraine. After the pocket tournament in France, the team travelled back to Spain and continued having friendly matches against Basque Euskadi and against Angola. Since the Antibes games, he was rarely used due to his poor performances when inserted into games. On one occasion, it was caught on video where he was scolded by National team Coach Chot Reyes and being approached by the Team Consultant, Tab Baldwin.
  On the last two friendly matches of Gilas, Fajardo finally showed signs of improvement. During a friendly match against the Egypt National Team, Andray Blatche was performing bad. Fajardo had the chance to step up and provided the inside presence for the team. Team Manager Aboy Castro was quoted saying June Mar gave us the effort and the production while Andray was on the bench, he played the game of his life.  An improvement in his game was noticed, in terms of hustle, assertiveness and even his mid range shooting.
  Against Dominican Republic, it was the same situation for him wherein he was showing good signs of improvement in terms of playing international ball.
  During his stint in the recent 2014 FIBA World Cup, Fajardo was very consistent in his performance, providing energy and hustle every time he came off the bench. It was expected by many that he would struggle on playing against other bigs from Croatia, Greece, and Argentina, but he exceeded this negative expectations and provided good numbers everytime he relieved Blatche. Due to his good performance, he was ranked second among all players in terms of Player Efficiency Rating (PER). With this rating, he was behind the Spanish NBA Player Pau Gasol, and ranked higher than some NBA players in the PER rating.
  Due to his good performance, everyone was asked why he was playing limited minutes coming off the bench, and when he was interviewed, he said that he trusts the coach and he knows that the coach has plans.
  Everyone's wish was granted on the team's last game against Senegal. Most of the players were either fatigued and injured, and as expected, Fajardo played his best game of the tournament. After the game, he had 15 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 assists as he provided hustle and muscle against the big men of Senegal wherein it came to a point that
caption: Fajardo (leftmost) in 2014, during the FIBA World Cup
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