Tim Cone: A Free Man

Thirteen titles in 22 years!

Taking coaches for granted is arguably the one thing that all sports have in common and that it’s a rarity for organizations to reward an individual who watches countless videos, scouts players and opponents and wakes up everyday trying to motivate a bunch of strangers.

But such is not the case for Timothy Earl Cone, who earned his stripes and went up the PBA ranks from a then unheralded American coach (many questioned Cone’s appointment at first, crediting it more to his close ties with Alaska team owner Wilfred Uytengsu).  I can’t name a coach who has been with a team even half of Cone’s tenure. Meralco’s Ryan Gregorio looked like he’d be with Purefoods forever, but that soon ended. Even Jong Uichico was shuffled back and forth the Ginebra and San Miguel benches.

Credit goes to Uytengsu for keeping his faith on Cone. But at the same merit, Cone probably deserves all the accolades and praises in the world for being able to translate his and Uytengsu’s dream of a basketball team with values and integrity (and all that wholesome marketing stuff you’d expect from a milk brand) to PBA success. The minute the team won its first title en route to a grand slam in 1996, it has indeed felt like they never looked back and continued to build contenders year after year regardless of the players they took in and lost.

To put things in perspective, Cone led the Milkmen/ Aces to 13 titles in 22 years which is unmatched other than the great Baby Dalupan’s 15 (which I argue is a different time in Philippine basketball, when you only had two powerhouse teams while the rest were pretty much non-competitive blahs).

Cone had to hurdle the great Ron Jacobs, charismatic Robert Jaworski Sr. (who has always appeared to be able to squeeze more from his players than anyone else), unpredictable Yeng Guiao and even the new wave of Filipino bench geniuses like assistant (and now Alaska replacement) Joel Banal, Chot Reyes, Uichico and Siot Tangquincen.

Then came the last six years of lopsided trades and blatant disregard for the PBA salary cap among others. Alaska was losing players left and right, either via lopsided trades, or requests from their own guys who want more out of their basketball careers (financially speaking).

I don’t want to speculate, but it’s kind of hard to argue against a maximum Php 350,000 paycheck with an unlimited supply of dairy products versus, say, a max check with your own hotdog, beer, gas, cellphone, etc. franchises/ endorsements as added perks/ incentives.

And while it’s painful to see Cone leave the Alaska bench and maybe one day wear an SMC polo-shirt uniform (or UAAP colors even), we should think about the man who preached integrity and class through and through and, when the game started getting uglier by the minute, left on his own terms and handled things like the man we’ve pictured him of being.

What I love about the whole scenario is, if ever Cone does sign-up with a free-spending PBA team with unlimited resources, then we'll finally be able to see him at his best: coaching elite level players with no fear of them being traded or any other unwanted drama. 

“Bong, set the screen for Johnny. Johw-johw, pass the ball to Johnny, Aaaayyyttt?”