It has been more than a decade now since we have seen Coach Tim Cone’s San Mig Super Coffee Mixers win a Grand Slam in the PBA. A Grand Slam means becoming a champion in all three conferences in one season of the PBA. But why has no team replicated such a prestigious award?
More Talented Than Ever
As bizarre as it may sound honestly speaking, teams around the league have more talented players compared to the last time when we saw the squads that the 2014 Coffee Mixers went up against. Also, the current ball clubs don’t just have one star player which opponents can just focus their defense on. Even expansion teams like Terrafirma Dyip and Blackwater Bossings have 2 or 3 players who can compete on the highest level possible.
This is not yet mentioning how good the independent teams are performing now in the on-going 2024-25 PBA Commissioner’s Cup as they lead at the top of the team standings. Plus, the fact that there are currently more rookies who will begin developing their skill set and God-given abilities in Japan’s B League and/or Korea’s KBL before announcing their willingness to play in the first basketball league in Asia, there’s no doubt that every PBA team in the near future can have more globally experienced players than ever.
No More Super Teams
San Mig Coffee Mixers had the starting five of PJ Simon, Joe Devance, Marc Pingris, Mark Barroca, and James Yap. With this, teams around the league have done all that they can to duplicate what these players have accomplished for their squad. The closest thing that we got was San Miguel Beermen’s Death Five which includes Alex Cabagnot, Chris Ross, Marcio Lassiter, Arwind Santos, and June Mar Fajardo.
SMB’s Death Five is no joke as they have won numerous championships including winning the Philippine Cup title for five straight years (2014-2019), being the only team to ever comeback from a 0-3 deficit in a Final series, and being the only team in the 2010’s to ever come close to winning a Grand Slam title during the 2017 and 2019 season.
But after the SMB’s Death Five, there’s no team that has ever formed such a dominant squad to ever win three straight consecutive championships. Yes, power-house teams like Barangay Ginebra, TNT, Rain or Shine, and even the Beermen themselves have championship-caliber players in their roster but it has not been equally successful compared to the SMB in 2010’s. And if that isn’t achieved, then the starting five of the Coffee Mixers are still lightyears ahead.
Internationally Prepared
Since the formation of the East Asia Super League, recently crowned champions and finals runner-ups around all the basketball leagues in SouthEast Asia are given the opportunity to battle each other out. That being said, the best of the best are being tested under one mini-tournament thus, the experience that these games bring to PBA teams has developed winning game styles that coaches use to their advantage once the regular PBA season begins.
Also, guest teams are now allowed in the PBA. In 2022 we saw the Bay Area Dragons march their way to the Commissioner’s Cup Finals only to be beaten by eventual champions Barangay Ginebra. In the 2024-25 Commissioner’s Cup, it’s now the Hong Kong Eastern testing their luck in the PBA.
Aside from giving the local players from the PBA the international experience that they need in order to win a championship, these guest teams are also in the way for local ball clubs to achieve a Grand Slam.
One in a Million
In the end, let’s admit it, we were just lucky to see a team again win a Grand Slam in 2014 as it is really an extremely rare achievement to be done. In the history of the PBA, it has only been done five times. Crispa Redmanizers in 1976 and 1983, San Miguel Beermen in 1989, Alaska Milkmen in 199,6, and the San Mig Coffee Mixers in 2014. Coach Tim Cone is definitely one of one as he coached the two Grand Slam teams Alaska and San Mig Coffee.






But he even admits that it’s really hard to win a Grand Slam again as he mentions in an interview from Spin.ph in 2019 “People don’t know how hard it is and how, I hate to use the word because I’ve been there and I won a couple, lucky you have to be”. This was when his Ginebra squad ended the Grand Slam dream of SMB in the 2019 PBA Governor’s Cup. He also added “That’s the difference between winning a grand slam and losing a grand slam. Everything has to come together perfectly. You’ve got to be able to be injury-free, you don’t lose an Arwind Santos, and that’s why it’s just so difficult”.
Indeed, the stars must align perfectly for another squad to win three straight championships in one season. But I guess “dominance” is not something Filipino fans can enjoy these days but rather seeing a team finally win their first-ever PBA title in franchise history.