MANILA, Philippines — Tim Cone stressed that he has no plans of expanding the Gilas Pilipinas pool in the future.
In fact, the American mentor clarified that his philosophy has to do with the short preparation time he has with the players, given the various tournaments that they are into outside Gilas.
"To be honest, absolutely not (going to expand the pool)," Cone told media men in an interview on Monday. "I know that's been out there, and I guess someone wrote something I'm gonna do that but I think I was misunderstood. We're not gonna expand the pool because of the short preparation time we have. The teaching part of the team is much harder when you have a big pool."
In the first window of the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers last February, Cone shared the team only had about one week to prepare since he had to wait for the PBA Commissioner's Cup Finals to finish.
San Miguel Beer, which won that conference title, had June Mar Fajardo and CJ Perez in the Gilas team. Shortly after the title series, Gilas started its camp at the Inspire Sports Academy in Calamba, Laguna with the two SMB stars joining the national squad.
"If you have 18 guys in the team, you have to teach 18 your system, and it gets difficult to do that especially when you have only 10 days or 7 days," stressed Cone.
"If you got a whole year or season to teach 18 guys, you can teach all 18 easily over a period of time. But with short preparation time, if you teach five people how to do something you can do that quick."
Cone is resigned to the fact that he can't have all the players he would have wanted for Gilas, a reason why he wanted a compact team that will have players absorbing his system even in such a short period of preparation time.
"We can't always get all the players we want. I would prefer to have a bigger pool and longer preparation and prepare a month or two before we go to a tournament, but it's just not feasible. We haver to work with what we have," he added.
Gilas is coming off a semifinal stint in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament over a week ago with the Philippines bowing to eventual champion Brazil, 71-60.
The loss dashed the Philippines' Olympic hopes in the process.
Gilas will take a break but will resume training early in November as the national squad prepares for the second window of the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers.
The Philippines hosts New Zealand and Hong Kong.
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