Gilas Pilipinas coach Tim Cone has always said he isn’t one to make excuses. But in his wide-ranging interview with former PBA commissioner Noli Eala for Power & Play on Saturday morning, the multi-titled couldn’t help but rue the short preparation time his Gilas squad had leading to the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup no thanks to the PBA’s 49th season ending so late on July 25—or just two weeks before the continental tourney’s opening day.
“We have certain parameters from which we can work from, and we’re trying to do the best within those parameters . . . I would have loved to have been able to have more time [to prepare],” Cone told Eala. “Actually, those two weeks, in terms of preparation, I think in only three of those days, in terms of those two weeks, we had a full team practice. We had seven, eight guys, two of which didn’t play on the team [RJ Abarrientos and Troy Rosario] . . .”
Not to belabor the point, but the PBA season ending so late certainly played a role in that dilemma, and Eala astutely pointed that out on his show by comparing the PBA’s final play date to the last day of other Asian leagues:
- The Japan B.League ended on May 27.
- The Korean Basketball League wrapped up its season on May 17.
- Taiwan’s P-League concluded on May 21.
- The NBL was over by March 23.
- The Chinese Basketball Association finished on May 20.
Notice a trend? All of above leagues had their respective seasons wrapped up by May, which meant the national teams of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and China all had at least two months to prepare for the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup.
Eala Rebuts Tim Cone and Gives Neat History Lesson
Clearly, the PBA not making time for FIBA competitions like the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup isn’t sitting well with the former PBA commissioner, who pointed out that quite a few countries are aligned with the FIBA schedule already. Indeed, even the NBA in the US ends in early June, giving its players at least a month to prepare for FIBA tournaments usually held in July, August, and September.
“Everyone, every country’s in the same boat because we follow one FIBA calendar,” Eala told Tim Cone. “Yet some countries have been able to do something about it. And that’s the only point that I want to make now.”
To that, Cone replied: “I think that the difference is that historically they have all been taking time off during that time, and historically, we have never taken that time off.”
Eala vehemently disagreed because, well, the PBA did it before. The former commissioner should know. Once upon a time, he had the vision to change the PBA’s schedule so it could better align with that of FIBA’s. “I beg to disagree,” Eala butted in. “I beg to disagree because during my time, we really left the June to September period open. That’s why it became a two-conference format. That was the reason for that . . . .”
Eala, of course, was referring to his time as commissioner when he readjusted the PBA format from three conferences to just two and shortened the season to about nine months from the usual ten or eleven. The PBA instituted this radical change starting in the 2004–05 season, which ran from October 3, 2004 to July 10, 2025. In the five seasons the two-conference format was used, four ended by the third week of July and three spanned just nine months total.
So, no, not even the great Tim Cone can tell Noli Eala that the PBA can’t accommodate a more FIBA-friendly schedule. Eala’s PBA did it back then. Why can’t Willie Marcial’s PBA do the same now?
If it did, maybe Cone’s Gilas iteration wouldn’t have crashed and burned at the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup.
