Call it deja vu, a work of fate, or simply pure coincidence but Barangay Ginebra head coach Tim Cone is not passing up on an Abarrientos – a surname that surely rings a bell in the PBA.

He did not 31 years ago, and he never dared in the recently concluded in the Season 49 Rookie Draft.

Ginebra moved mountains to go up to the No. 3 spot of the draft by dealing away Christian Standhardinger and Stanley Pringle just to get its hand on RJ Abarrientos, niece of PBA great and Cone’s star guard back in their time with Alaska.

And Cone couldn’t help but recall the time when he also drafted the elder Abarrientos.

“I kind of compare it to the time back in 1993 when we were drafting with Alaska and we had the third pick. It was Jun Limpot, number one, Vic Pablo, number two. We were hoping for Vic Pablo,” said Cone

“We had number three. We were hoping, hoping, hoping for Vic Pablo. They took Vic Pablo and we went, ‘Oh man, we have to take Johnny Abarrientos. We took Johnny and never looked back,” he recalled.

And that was the start of a legendary partnership that saw them cop nine championships with the Aces.

Cone said Ginebra had a hard time weighing between going for a big man or tapping Abarrientos in the draft but eventually ended up doing the latter as he feels like RJ was just too elite of a player to pass up on.

“We just felt that RJ would be an elite player at his position. Maybe even a transcendent player. He has the potential to be that kind of player. It was just somebody we couldn’t pass up,” said Cone.

“We’re always obsessed with size. We always want to get the big player first. That’s something we battled with,” said Cone. “We really debated on it, but we just said that we just couldn’t pass up on RJ. We’re hoping it turns out. Third pick for RJ, third pick for Johnny, both Abarrientos. Kind of poetic, we thought.”