WHEN Tim Cone left Star (now Magnolia) in 2015, Marc Pingris was one of the players who wasn't shy in sharing his heartbreak following the breakup.
It was a corporate restructuring move that caught the players from the Purefoods franchise off guard, especially with the whole team just one year removed from the storied franchise's first grand slam.
Pingris, unquestionably the heart and soul of that close-knit San Mig crew, was the most vocal with his emotions as Hotshots dealt with the heartbreak of seeing their coach head to sister team and top rival Ginebra.
Not a lot of people know that partnership almost didn't happen.
"About three or four weeks into my coaching B-Meg at that time, Ping actually called Gov. [Rene] Pardo and actually requested a trade," the most successful coach in PBA history told Spin Zoom In.

Pingris' desire to be traded was prompted by his frustration over Cone's triangle offense, which seemed too complicated for the energetic forward that he felt he would never thrive in such system.
"Gov. Pardo asked, 'Why do you want to be traded?' He says, 'I'll never understand this triangle, it's not for me and I just cannot do it. I want to be traded and go to another team,'" Cone said.
Lucky for Purefoods fans, Pardo had his full belief that the marriage would eventually work, and pleaded with the Pozorrubio, Pangasinan native to give the triangle a chance.
"Gov. Pardo said just give it some more time, give coach Tim a little bit more time and see if you can get it."
The multi-titled coach saw firsthand how Pingris struggled to cope with the system used with so much success by Phil Jackson with the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers - and Cone himself at Alaska.
"Ping was really struggling in the beginning to get all the different movements of the triangle. And he was oftentimes in the wrong place and he wasn't sure where he's gonna get his offensive rebounds, when he would be posting up or setting high screens. He just was in a lot of confusion in the beginning."
Pingris tried. And tried.
"One of the things about the triangle is that we insist that you execute. It's not a choice, you have to or else you're not going to play. And so he came to it with his own realization just through the insistence of executing over and over and over again, and we do so many repetitive drills.
"So after a while, it becomes second nature because we just drill on it so much. And then after even more while, then you start to realize, 'Hey, this works.' Suddenly, Ping was playing at a really high level and the team was playing at a high level, and that's where he got to find it."
"Ping just came to the a zone," Cone pointed out. "It wasn't me talking to him, it would just through the experience of him doing it."
The San Mig big man soon became a pillar of Cone's San Mig-era triangle, much like Bong Hawkins was for Alaska.
"Ironically, Ping became one of my most devout followers of the triangle. Once he figured it out and once he got it, he was one of our best in execution, he understood it," Cone said.
"[Pingris] kind of reminded me of Bong Hawkins. Back in the day, Bong would not only execute things to the absolute tee, he would demand it from his teammates that they do it too. And anytime they didn't do it, he was angry at them. He would close his eyebrows and once his eyebrows went like that, everybody was scared of Bong Hawkins," he said with a chuckle.
"And that was the key to Ping, he became very much the same way. He was perfect in his execution, and the moment guys would not execute everything, even coming into a timeout he would yell, 'Guys, we got to execute!' He started screaming at everybody and he just became that guy that we started to go to in terms of execution."
"He became not just a player but he became an incredible leader for us as well. And our relationship just blossomed. We became really close after that."
That partnership produced five championships for the storied Purefoods franchise, including only the fifth grand slam in league history. Pingris was also rewarded with the Finals MVPtrophy in the 2013 Governors' Cup.
In hindsight, Cone was glad he was never informed about the trade request from Pingris, until much later.
"They never told me about it, Gov. Pardo never told me about it, so I never knew anything about it, which is probably good," Cone said with a smile.
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