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    Tim Cone wishes he had a chance to coach these superstars in PBA

    Vergel Meneses, who he describes as 'super super talented,' heads 'what if' list
    May 14, 2021

    TIM Cone may already have all the accolades that a coach can ask for.

    But a 23-time PBA champion and two-time grand slam winner like Cone, believe it or not, still has his 'what ifs': like, what it would be like handling some superstars who haven’t played for him at the club level.

    Asked about players he wished he had a chance to coach in an episode of Zoom In on SPIN, the Barangay Ginebra coach rattled off a few names that have been thorns in the side of his teams, but have yet to be on the same side as him.

    “Lots of them, but the first name that popped in my mind was Vergel Meneses.” Cone said. “I know there’s Alvin (Patrimonio), June Mar (Fajardo), but Vergel just popped in my mind.”

    “Vergel was one of those super, super talented guys,” he added. “If I could just get Vergel, how great it would be?”

    Patrimonio, for his part, has faced Cone’s Alaska teams in the finals a handful of times, the first one in the 1990 Third Conference where Purefoods dispatched the top-seeded Air Force in five games to win the title.

    “I’ve had so many battles with them and what would it be like to have him on my side rather than go against him?” Cone said of the four-time MVP. “Back in the day, people don’t realize how special he was, how unstoppable he was.”

    Cone has also wondered handling some of the stars of this generation, aside from Fajardo.

    “I look at guys like Kiefer Ravena today,” he began. “What would it be like to coach Kiefer? Guys like that. You always look on the other side. The grass is always greener on the other side, so there’s always players over there you look over and covet.”

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    “But oftentimes they just go over right through your career and before you know it, they’ve passed you by and you never have a chance,” he added.

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      Good thing, Cone managed to handle them in the national team setting - Meneses and Patrimonio with the 1998 Centennial team and Fajardo and Ravena in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games team.

      “Both of them (national teams) were great because I got to coach players that I would never, ever coach otherwise,” Cone said. “For a short time, I got to coach Alvin Patrimonio, Vergel Meneses, Jun Limpot, Dennis Espino, Marlou Aquino.”

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      “That’s the thrill,” he added. “It’s coaching guys that I never got a chance to coach. Both were equal.”
      ___

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