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| Was it really Banal's fault? |
Coaching and personel selection errors aside, Joel Banal remains to be one of the better coaching minds in the business though rumors have it that he's on his way out of the Alaska Aces camp.
After given a fresh 3-year pact to lead the post-Tim Cone Aces, Banal was given only two conference to prove his worth and lead the young and developing squad into a Playoff contender. The first time out, they were pretty much a mess and were trying to run a sham of the Triangle Offense.
In the second conference, Banal dropped the Cone playbook and went with a three-guard, uptempo squad while opting for a dud of an import in 7"0 Adam Parada. Parada did his job, but the numbers he was putting up failed in comparison to his other foreign counterparts.
This writer argued that a better option could've been for the Aces to get a high scoring, small forward-type import ala the Barako Bull Energy's Gabe Freeman. They have the PG in L.A. Tenorio, a decent SG combo in Cyrus Baguio and Bonbon Custodio, plus the league's best Twin Tower combo since Marlou Aquino and Dennis Espino in JayR Reyes and Sonny Thoss (shoutout to all my Santa Lucia diehards out there).
True enough, Parada ate into both Thoss and Reyes minutes. Thoss, though solid, is an elite level enforcer type. Reyes, though a wash on D, is the best post man in the league not named Kerby Raymundo or Eric Menk. That, plus he isn't even near 30 years of age!
Credit goes to Coach Joel for resuscitating the timid Baguio back into superstarship with the high octane offense, but given the guys on the roster, they were doing just right in the Philippine Cup and just needed some minor tweaks.
It should also be noted that Coach Joel didn't look like he was happy with the other guys on his bench, opting to keep his starters in the game for long stretches when he had promising guys such as Paolo Bugia, Hans Thiele, Eric Salamat and the mysterious, now urban legend, Julius Pasculado waiting on the bench.
Talks have it that former Adamson head coach Luigi Trillo, who's having a great run with the Cebuana Lhullier franchise in the PBADL, is all set to take over. Honestly, this writer doubts if he'll be able to succeed where Banal has failed given his blah coaching record with the then star-studded Falcons of Ken Bono, PJ Cabahug, Marvin Polyapoy and that R. Tagupa dude who appeared to be over age but was a complete G at the PG spot.
Oh, and someone tell Aces brass to get a backup point guard for Tenorio.
yeah, these aces seem to think that tenorio can do it all at pg. no wonder julius is extinct and dulay is on the abl. the aces are really talented. i dont think they have a shallow bench even with tdlc out. the thing is thiele is a reserve and eric still do not enjoy longer minutes.trillo destroyed adamson's chances then(how come people have forgotten mark abadia,hehe)but well he's redeemed himself with the d league.
ReplyDeletedi ba mei naglaro pang Hugnatan sa Adamson? O ndi na sila nagkaabot ni Bono? :P
ReplyDeleteSucks for Coach Joel, but I guess the players just need a new voice. I still maintain that Bonbon Custodio is a shooting guard. They should stop trying to transform him into a point guard.
c roel po yun. kapatid ni reynel.si leo canuday at cabahug at gonzalgo yung players ng adamson nun.
ReplyDelete