Tim Cone reacts in the course of the gold medal game between the Philippines and Jordan. —REUTERS
The country’s national basketball team, which on Monday officially began its era under Tim Cone, shall be navigating its path to qualify for several high-profile tournaments using growth and continuity as its compass.
“I believe that’s one thing that we’ve at all times talked about when it comes to Gilas (Pilipinas)—that we don’t have a sure level of continuity, you understand. So we’re hoping that we are able to use the [Fiba] windows that we now have to grow the team,” he told reporters on Monday night, in the course of the Philippine Sportswriters Association Awards Night at Diamond Hotel in Manila.
“This team goes to remain together, do every window, play the Southeast Asian Games, play the Asian Games, the World Cup qualifiers, the [Asia] Cup qualifiers. As we’re saying, we would like to maintain this team intact because each time we play, we’ll either grow from either the success or the failure that we’ll have,” Cone went on.
“We’re attempting to make this a team after which grow it and improve and higher and higher after which hopefully reach our potential, sometime around yr three or yr 4, and, [when] we’re qualifying for the Olympics through the World Cup.”
Cone identified local stars June Mar Fajardo, CJ Perez, Scottie Thompson, Jamie Malonzo, Calvin Oftana, Chris Newsome, young Japan-based standouts Dwight Ramos, Kai Sotto, AJ Edu, varsity star Kevin Quiambao and naturalized ace Justin Brownlee as his players for the subsequent 4 years—or a cycle leading as much as the Fiba (International Basketball Federation) World Cup in Qatar and the Summer Olympic Games.
Large is inefficient
“The thought is that we use this primary Fiba window with Hong Kong and Taiwan, we use our preparation time and that window to get to a certain level, after which bring that level into the Olympic Qualifying Tournaments to find a way to play Latvia and Georgia and improve from there,” in response to the decorated mentor. “Then use that to enter the subsequent one, which shall be Recent Zealand and Hong Kong here at home.”
Cone acknowledged that going with only a dozen players feels a bit rigid, but he identified that having a bigger selection could be inefficient—especially for the leagues from which these players are going to be plucked from. “We didn’t need to put an enormous pool together. That takes more time. You understand, the [Philippine Basketball Association] and the [varsity] leagues—they don’t need to stop their leagues for a month or two or three months for us to organize … if we’re going to try doing that, there’s at all times going to be resistance from them in lending their players,” he said.
“If we are able to prove that we are able to do it with a brief preparation time—a shorter preparation that’s cumulative over time—then the stakeholders are gonna say, ‘Oh, yeah, we see that now. You understand, we are able to bend our league around seven days of prep, or 10 days of prep for whatever.’”
Cone also understands that injuries can strike anytime, which is why he assured that he’s agile enough to entertain changes because the campaign plods along.
“Eventually, we’ll must make a tweak here or there. Ideally, it would be the identical 12 guys for 4 years. But that’s, you understand, that’s also form of unrealistic,” he said. “Guys grow old and guys get injured. So there shall be some tweaks along the way in which. But the thought is to maintain an intact core that understands a system [and] that’s not going to be, you understand, varied on a regular basis. If we modify, we’ll have to begin from zero,” he said. INQ
