IF he is to be asked, coach Tim Cone would rather have had more time to prepare Gilas Pilipinas for FIBA Asia Cup 2025.
But admittedly, Cone said preparation time is beyond his control which is why he tries his best to work around the ecosystem of Philippine basketball, which features the lengthy PBA season, in order to form the best national team possible.
“These are things that are totally, personally, out of my control. It’s out of our control,” said Cone in "Power and Play" when told by host Noli Eala that other countries wrapped up their respective seasons months before the Asia Cup, allowing them to have ample preparation.
“We have certain parameters we work from and we’re trying to do the best within those parameters. Now, we’re gonna (have to) change the whole PBA culture, I would have loved to have been able to have more time… The bottom line is though, personally, I can’t change that, so I don’t worry about that. Can’t worry about what I can't control."
For this continental meet, the Philippines had two weeks of preparation, but Cone admitted that they only had three practices with a full team, as June Mar Fajardo and Cjay Perez of San Miguel and Calvin Oftana of TNT were still playing in the PBA Philippine Cup.
If he would have his way, the legendary coach said he would certainly shorten the PBA season for Gilas to have the time it needs to get ready for major tournaments.
“Yes,” answered Cone when asked whether he would recommend a shortened season. “But again, who’s in control here? You’re asking the wrong person. You have to call somebody else and ask them. I would love to have more preparation time.”
Gilas behind the eight-ball
Cone then cited the cases of Australia and New Zealand, which in the months leading up to the Asia Cup, faced each other in a series of friendlies.
“New Zealand and Australia, they played four practice games against each other. Three in Australia, one in New Zealand. That was in May and June after their season was over. But our season goes 11 months out of the year,” he said.
“So again, if you want to change the whole culture or whatever, that’s fine. I’d be great with that. But the bottom line is, again, these are the parameters we have. It’s not only just time constraints, it’s also budgetary constraints.
"We don’t have a massive budget like we did during the World Cup, which we were preparing for a home World Cup. We don’t have that as well. We are working under certain constraints that we don’t have any control of unless someone can change that.”
The short preparation time is also one of the primary reasons why Cone has stuck with a compact national team during international tournaments.
“The windows, we’re only going to have those three to six days. If we make wholesale changes to the team, and then we have three days to prepare possibly, how good are we going to be when we play?" he said.
“These are the considerations that we have actually taken. But we’ve taken account of these things so we’re trying to the best within the parameters in terms of preparation and budget.”
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