Cone turns jetsetter with Gilas, Gin Kings
DUBAI—The following weeks and months will see coach Tim Cone making constant trips to airports all for basketball on different fronts.
“It’s going to be a lot of travel,” Cone said as his Barangay Ginebra, San Miguel Beer and the rest of the PBA delegation arrived in this Middle Eastern business hub on Friday for the league’s return for the first time since 2019.
Ginebra and San Miguel will square off on Sunday at Coca-Cola Arena before an expected big crowd of Filipinos based here, as they get some feel of home with two of the PBA’s biggest teams out to snap out to improve on 1-2 starts in the Philippine Cup.
For Cone, it’s the first of many visits overseas for both club and country.
After this, Cone and Gilas Pilipinas are slated for an away match in Guam on Nov. 28 to play the tiny American island’s squad that is expected to be led by Jericho Cruz, who is also in this sojourn as part of the Beermen roster.
Two weeks later, Cone and Ginebra will return to the Middle East, this time in Bahrain, where the Gin Kings will take on the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters on Dec. 17.
More flights are on tap for Cone in 2026, with the succeeding windows of the World Cup Qualifiers, Nagoya Asian Games in mind and other PBA overseas visits in the works that may come into fruition.
Cone admits that it’s a grueling schedule, for the reasons that will be felt once one trip after another is done.
“It is fun to go and visit new countries. It’s tiring when you get back,” Cone said. “It’s fun getting there. It’s no fun coming back because now we’re going to work.”
What he looks forward to in this first stop is the intriguing situation of having a marquee battle outside the comforts of Smart Araneta Coliseum or Mall of Asia Arena, especially facing a San Miguel team anchored by June Mar Fajardo.
It will be the first meeting between the two sibling rivals under the San Miguel Corp. umbrella since the deciding Game 7 of their Philippine Cup semifinal series that was won by the Beermen.
But the early matchup holds greater importance, given that Ginebra dropped two of the first three, including a collapse against Meralco in its last game, and San Miguel going 0-2 before entering the win column by blasting Rain or Shine in Rodriguez, Rizal.
“I think that’ll be a big challenge for us playing San Miguel on the road, and then come back and … it’s not much going on the road, it’s the coming back and jumping right back because it takes a while for you to recover,” said Cone.
Meanwhile, Rain or Shine took advantage of Blackwater’s lack of endgame poise to hack out a 110-100 victory on Friday in the PBA Philippine Cup at Ynares Sports Center in Antipolo.
