TWENTY-SIX years ago, when Tim Cone was first handed the national team job, he gathered some of the best players from the PBA to form what came to be known as the 'Centennial Team,' months before the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games.
The selections he came up with reflected the kind of team he envisioned.
Going against the advice to put together a group of role players capable of playing as a team, Cone didn't leave out any of the biggest names in the PBA in a veritable all-star squad that spent months getting familiar with his pet triangle offense.
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Cone got the two best point guards at that time in Johnny Abarrientos and Olsen Racela; got the two tallest, most athletic wingers in Vergel Meneses and Kenneth Duremdes; then got the best shooters in Jojo Lastimosa and Allan Caidic, even if by then the 'Triggerman,' at 35, was past his prime.
Most of all, Cone got size. Loads of it. He brought in 7-foot-1 EJ Feihl, 6-9 Marlou Aquino, 6-6 Jun Limpot, 6-5 Dennis Espino, and 6-4 Alvin Patrimonio. He also gave 6-10 Andy Seigle the final spot, relegating Jeff Cariaso to a reserve.
That Centennial Team won the Jones Cup but ran into problems, mainly from the lack of mobility of its big men and the players' inexperience in international basketball, when it lost to Korea in the Asian Games quarterfinals and to China in the semis, settling for the bronze after one final victory over Kazakhstan.
In the intervening years, the American coach, born in Oregon but raised in the Philippines since he was nine, distinguished himself as the most successful coach in PBA history, but admitted that glowing resume has an asterisk as he always looked back to that Asiad as the 'biggest letdown' of his career.
"I was so devastated in 1998 when we didn't win it," Cone said after he laid the Ghost of the Asiad to rest by leading Gilas Pilipinas to the gold medal last year in Indonesia. "It brought back a lot of memories. I thought about that team a lot."
That Asiad success thrust Cone back into the middle of a Gilas program that was recalibrated after the tumultuous years under his pal Chot Reyes, this time given the free hand not only to draft the plans but also pick the players he wanted.
Cone gets the players he wanted
When offered the Gilas job, Cone took a while to say yes but from Day One it was apparent he knew exactly what he wanted and how he planned to go about it, perhaps because those ideas - all fresh but at the same time guided by the mistakes of the past, both old and recent, made by him or by other people running the program - had marinated in his mind for 25-odd years.
"I was always a little shy to coach the national team because I felt a Pinoy would be better suited," Cone told SPIN.ph when asked if he yearned for another shot after that Centennial Team disappointment, "but it was always a secret dream to do so."
The timing of his return couldn't be any better.
Twenty-six years is a long time and Cone, upon his return, found himself spoiled for choice in all the positions, beginning with two extraordinarily tall frontliners in June Mar Fajardo and Kai Sotto that solved the one overwhelming disadvantage all previous Philippine teams had to deal with: size, or the lack thereof.
Size matters
With those two building blocks, Cone proceeded to form a compact pool that had one obvious theme: size matters.
In the frontline, he backed up 7-3 Sotto and 6-10 Fajardo with 6-10 AJ Edu, 6-8 Carl Tamayo, 6-7 Kevin Quiambao, and 6-9 reserve Japeth Aguilar; 6-5 Justin Brownlee, 6-7 Jamie Malonzo, 6-7 Mason Amos, and 6-5 Calvin Oftana patrolled the wings; and in the backcourt he had 6-3 Dwight Ramos, 6-2 Chris Newsome, 6-2 CJ Perez and Scottie Thompson, who at 6-1 stood as the pool's smallest player.
Armed with a pool that had an average height of 6-6 and size across the board, Cone had exactly what he coveted in 1998: a team tall enough, talented enough and experienced enough that there were very few weaknesses to conceal, few mismatches to sweat over; that all the team needed to do was to play hard and play smart, and Cone to coach well to have a chance against some of the best teams in the world.
Cone said he was lucky that both Sotto and Fajardo were both available in the last Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Latvia, arming the Philippines with a frontline that for the first time in history can no longer be "overwhelmed" by the world's top teams.
"Our big men, especially June Mar and Kai, are generational talents and this is the window when they can play together on the same team," he said. "Add AJ [Edu] to the mix, and you have some depth in the frontline that can't be overwhelmed."
That emphasis on size and the aversion for mismatches, were likely also the reason why Cone, from the very start, wasn't too keen on naming natural but smaller point guards in the mold of an Abarrientos ar an LA Tenorio to his present pool.
Asked about it, Cone didn't answer directly but was obvious in his response: "I'm a defensive coach first, so defensive match-ups are crucial to how I coach."
Cone formula passes OQT test
If Cone and Gilas needed any validation that they were on the right path, they got a resounding one in the Riga OQT, where the Philippines stunned world No. 6 Latvia, 89-80, lost by two in a winnable game against world No. 23 Georgia, and held its ground against world No. 12 Brazil in the semifinals even with Sotto sitting out.
“It’s a great achievement for Gilas," said Gilas 1.0 coach Rajko Toroman in an interview with the SEAG Network. "I think the competition was very strong. It was very exciting to watch how Gilas was playing this tournament.
"To beat Latvia on their homecourt, it was amazing.”
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Another former national coach, Yeng Guiao, was amazed by this assembly of players, saying: "When we play internationally, we have to have size. And it’s not just size per se, it has to be quality size. Kai gave us that, June Mar gave us that, Brownlee gave us that at the three position.
"Dwight Ramos is not really a small point guard. Newsome did a good job alternating at the point guard and Newsome is not a small point guard. So we solved that problem."
'Now we know' moment
Cone said the whole OQT experience proved that these present-day Gilas players can stand their ground against world-class teams. But the next step figures to be harder when Gilas embarks on a quest to win the Fiba Asia Cup to be hosted by Saudi Arabia in 2025, earn a spot in the 2027 Basketball World Cup in Qatar and vie once again for a spot in the Olympics in Los Angeles four years down the road.
Cone, 66, is under no illusion that it would be any easier from hereon. But he also knows that Gilas has the materials to get it done. Now more than ever.
"It’s kind of like a ‘now we know’ moment. Now, we know we can compete," said the multi-titled coach. "[The challenge now is] how can we get that next step in which we can get a little bit better and not just compete, but win."
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