FOR Ginebra coach Tim Cone, there was no question on who the Gin Kings were going to pick in the special rookie draft on Sunday at Robinsons Place Manila.
The Gin Kings officialy selected Kevin Ferrer from the special draft for Gilas cadets pool on Sunday, quashing talk that they had traded their reported pick to Star for Jio Jalalon.
Cone said getting Ferrer made sense since picking Jalalon instead would've force them to have an unwanted surplus in the Ginebra backcourt.
“It becomes to us: 'What do we do with him? What do we do when we play him we LA (Tenorio), Scottie (Thompson), and Jayjay (Helterbrand)? We’re just overloaded (in the backcourt),” Cone said.
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“I think one of the things, from a coaching standpoint, in terms of chemistry, you don’t want to overload the talent in one position,” added the two-time grand slam coach.
“Then it becomes a competition between great players and you end up sitting your great players on the bench,” he continued. “Our fear with getting someone like Jalalon was he would have to share time with LA and Scottie and they all share time.”
Picking the rangy Ferrer, Cone said, adds depth to the Gin Kings small forward rotation that features Joe Devance, Chris Ellis, and Aljon Mariano.
“Ferrer really fills out a role for us, something we can see,” Cone said. “And we hope we can win some championship with him."
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Cone insisted he didn’t know the mechanics of the special draft.
“I wasn’t even at the special draft,” the champion coach said. “All I know was we got Ferrer and I was happy.”
Asked if he had a say in their pick, Cone was vocal in wanting the former University of Santo Tomas star.
“I made it clear that he’s (Ferrer) the guy we’re looking for, but I wasn’t sure we were going to get him, so when they called back to say we got him, I was very happy.”
Overall, Cone was satisfied of their draft haul that also has unheralded Jammer Jamito at No.3 and former practice player Jericho de Guzman at No. 10.
“That’s exactly what we wanted,” he said. “When we came in here, we were looking at Jamito at number three and De Guzman at number ten, so there were no complications for us.”