When you wish upon a STAR

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(Photo credit: Inquirer.net)

Other than Barangay Ginebra San Miguel’s Japeth Aguilar, we have grown fond of mocking and ridiculing STAR Hotshots head coach Jason Webb at every chance we get on social media. To be clear, we are making fun of them NOT as human beings, but rather as ill-equipped basketball personalities.

Aguilar being the “has all the athletic gifts of an NBA talent but the IQ of a JV player” and Webb, well, let us talk about how Coach Jason’s first season as a legitimate PBA head coach went shall we?
To recap, STAR finished the season with a 10 wins and 19 losses record: 4-7 in the Philippine Cup, 5-6 in the Commissioner’s, and finally 1-6 in the Governor’s. It could very well be concluded that the mid-season acquisition of RR Garcia, Rodney Brondial and Jake Pascual distorted whatever mediocre-level chemistry was present in the team. Sure, Garcia suddenly emerged to play big minutes, but it is not like they gave up any of their core rotation guys to acquire his services (they traded away rookies Mark Cruz and Norbert Torres if we remember correctly).

Should everything be blamed on Coach Jason?
Well, in a way, and this is why we have been questioning his ascension, yes. He pretty much inherited the same Grand Slam roster that his predecessor, Tim Cone, worked with minus versatile forward Joe DeVance. And though DeVance is extremely talented and could do a lot of damage, it is not like Star ran every single play through him during the Cone Era.   

So where did it all go wrong for Coach Jason?

From the outside looking in, we feel that it all boiled down to his insecurities as a rookie head coach: the pressure to live up to his boss’ (whoever put him there) unfair expectations, to fill Cone’s big shoes, to earn the respect of his peers and players AND to somehow turn STAR into the PBA’s Golden State Warriors. Now that season 1 is all said and done, we can all say that based on the above-mentioned, Coach Jason failed in all aspects.

Was there really a need for him to force his system, whatever the hell it was, on a Grand Slam team that has lived and breathed the Triangle Offense en route to multiple titles in such a short time? Simply put, it is like asking a proven three point specialist like Allan Caidic to start shooting with his off-hand and still win shootouts. It just won’t work. And for Coach Jason and STAR, it didn’t work no matter how hard he tried to make it look as though he was “freeing” his stars 2x PBA MVP James Yap and PJ Simon.

You know that it didn’t work, and that Coach Jason realized this, because somewhere between the Ph and Commish Cup, we saw flashes of STAR’s old sets be it on offense or defense. But by then, we could see that the players were starting to look disgruntled and uninterested.

Even with his choice of imports, Coach Jason took what we feel is the “easy way out” by bringing back Denzel Bowles and Marqus Blakely—old hands of Cone’s, only to look pretty clueless on how to make them most effective on the court. To be quite honest, as a non-STAR fan, Bowles and Blakely had a lot of holes in their games but was minimized thanks to Cone’s genius. Under Webb? Both guys came undone.

So here is what we think Coach Jason should do for next season: be your own man.

Sure, we were harping about how he shouldn’t have changed the STAR system- but only because he chose to do it right away instead of going the “slow transition” route. And once it appeared that his approach wasn’t going anywhere, he panicked and went back to some of the stuff that they were doing. Basically, it should have been the other way around: easy, slow transition first, incorporating bits and pieces of his “new” offense and defense so that his veterans could buy in, before maybe easing out the Cone playbook in favor of his new one come 3rd conference.

Coach Jason will have the full off-season to work with his new guys, and we expect a lot out of youngsters Mark Barroca (who has emerged as this team’s clear cut 2nd leader after Marc Pingris), Garcia and Allein Maliksi. If Ian Sangalang could somehow get his mental toughness back, then he is still good enough to be considered a “cornerstone” for the future while Pascual and Brondial provide back-up minutes to Pingris.

As for Yap and Simon, we feel that it is best to move on from the pair much like how Ginebra (now under Cone) has been doing with their prized MVPs Mark Caguioa and Jayjay Helterbrand. Simon’s still good for scoring binges here and there, but nothing that Maliksi and Garcia can’t handle and more. Yap started to play off the ball and commit to rebounding under Cone, but is now back to just being a scorer again (and, for some reason—be it age or injury, an average one at that).
We sincerely hope that Coach Jason is able to turn it around for STAR next season, and that they land a big in the 2016 PBA Draft, but until then—we’ll just sit here and keep making jokes about how he should have stayed at the panel.

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