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    How Cone made ball-dominant Pringle buy in to equal-opportunity triangle at Ginebra

    Concern with iso sensation Pringle reminded Cone of Lastimosa, James Yap situation at Alaska, Purefoods
    Jul 7, 2020
    PHOTO: Jerome Ascano

    TALENTED as he may, Stanley Pringle remains as one of the most ball-dominant guards in the PBA.

    That's why when the former scoring champion arrived at Ginebra last year, many people questioned how he would fit in a team like the Gin Kings, with coach Tim Cone constantly preaching the lessons of equal opportunity stemming from the triangle.

    Cone, for his part, did admit of initially having these struggles with the Fil-Am guard.

    "Obviously, we had an issue with Stanley when he first came in because he was not used to the ball wheezing around. And he’s used to catching and then sizing up the defense, and that takes a few seconds for him what to do and decides where he wants us to go," he said.

    But it's not Cone's first rodeo as he has had his fair share of star players who he tried and succeeded in trusting his vaunted system.

    "We’ve had those issues with players over the years," he told Coaches Unfiltered.

    "Jojo Lastimosa was the toughest one to abide to the triangle because he didn’t want the ball moving. He want to stick that leg up and give a little shovel and look around before he makes his move, and it was a big adjustment for him. And to his great credit, it just goes to show the leadership. He was always a tremendous leader that he changed his whole game to bide in.

    "Same thing with James Yap. James was the same way when we first came to Purefoods. He was an iso guy. Kerby Raymundo was an iso guy and we had to kinda change that philosophically."

    It was a tough push-and-pull that Cone has had to work with his star players in his more than three-decade run coaching teams in the PBA.

    And believe him, he understands. If you're considered as the team's franchise player, of course, you will get the bulk of the shots and have the most touches on the leather.

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    "I think that hardest thing for a star or a superstar is that they feel if they give the ball up, the ball won’t come back to them. And that’s their biggest fear, and it’s gonna go to somebody who’s lesser of a player who’s gonna take that shot and they’re gonna get frustrated running back down the floor," he said.

    "So you have to get through that issue of that trust, that if I give up the ball, the first pass or the second pass, there’s the real good chance that I’m gonna get it back on the fourth or the fifth and be in a situation at that point to attack. That’s something we preach and we talk about."

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      And for him, as difficult of a task as it was, the proof is in the pudding -- with Cone winning 22 PBA titles across three franchises and being the only coach to claim a pair of Grand Slam triumphs.

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      "A lot of it comes down to the system," he said. "It’s just that for our system to work, we have to have the ball wheezing around. Daily, we work on five passes before we shoot. It’s just a habit that we make five passes before we shoot and that goes back to the old triangle days. Before you can even initiate the triangle, you’re making three or four passes before you’re even looking to attack so because you’re getting movement. And that was the beauty of the triangle, you couldn’t just come down and just attack, you have to go to the process of three or four passes before you can look to attack that may often lead to five or seven passes. I think it just gets infectious after a while, you guys start to see the effectiveness of it, you start to trust."

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      It's what guys like Lastimosa, Yap, and Raymundo, among others eventually understood.

      And it's something Pringle has continued to learn and understand as he dons the Ginebra colors.

      "Stanley made a really good adjustment in this last conference. He’s really starting to buy into it," said Cone of Pringle, who averaged 17.3 points, 4.4 assists, 4.1 rebounds, and 1.2 steals in the Gin Kings' quest to the 2019 Governors' Cup.

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      "That’s why everything came a little bit easier as the conference went along and I thought why we became more of a dominating team during the playoffs. It’s a really strong run to the playoffs and I think that was largely because Stanley was buying in to what we’re doing, about the idea, that wheezing the ball around.

      "I think it starts in the basic five passes in practice. Everything we do, you gotta pass five times before you’re gonna shoot the ball. We don’t demand that in a game, but it creates a habit coming into the game so guys are comfortable making five, six, seven passes or eight before they’re taking a shot and it also gets some of the habit of coming down and looking for a shot on first possession or first touch, which is something we try to make sure that guys aren’t doing that. It’s a little bit harder because guys in the other teams would come down, take quick shots right off transition and whatever. And we don’t preach that so it’s a tough adjustment, takes some discipline because it’s kinda what players want to do but that doesn’t always play into great team basketball which is what we wanna do and we want to be as a team."

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        PHOTO: Jerome Ascano
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