Tim Cone highlights importance of Doha trip for Gilas buildup


At a glance

  • Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tim Cone highlighted the importance of the Doha training camp not only for the third and final window of the FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers but also for the preparation of the Nationals for the tournament proper in August.


Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tim Cone highlighted the importance of the Doha training camp not only for the third and final window of the FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers but also for the preparation of the Nationals for the tournament proper in August.

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The veteran coach pointed out that Gilas won’t have enough time for training ahead of the 2025 Asia Cup in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and the series of friendlies in Qatar would be the perfect time to get everyone accustomed, especially the players returning from injuries.

“It’s friendlies, or basically exhibition games. But we felt, looking forward to the schedule, we're not going to have a lot of prep time for the FIBA Asia Championships in August so we're going to use this trip and this window as a chance to prepare,” said Cone.

The Nationals are welcoming back AJ Edu and Jamie Malonzo, who both missed the last window of the qualifiers as well as the Olympic Qualifying tournament last year in Latvia. Aside from the two, Gilas has also added Troy Rosario as part of its reserves following the knee injury to Kai Sotto.

And since Gilas will be playing three games against quality national teams in Egypt, Qatar and Lebanon in the Doha exhibition, to go along with the two road matches against New Zealand and Chinese Taipei, Cone felt the returning players as well as the holdovers will have enough time to gain experience together and develop chemistry.

“Since we're trying to bring AJ into the team, and Troy, as it turns out, but AJ's really the target, we felt he needed more than just two games before we played FIBA Asia in August,” said Cone.

"From what we understand, our schedule will probably have about five days of prep before we play FIBA Asia. So it doesn't give us much time to go out or do anything. So this is our chance right now. So we're going to take advantage of it,” he added.

Cone, however, admitted that it would be a tough stretch for Gilas especially with all the travelling involved from going to Doha, then returning back to Manila before flying to Taiwan and then Hong Kong then to New Zealand.

But it’s all part of the job and the preparations.

“It's going to be really tough. We're going to be doing a lot of travel in about less than eight or nine days' time. But we want it hard. That's the whole point,” said Cone.

“So we're going to use this time as a chance to prepare for the FIBA Asia. It's early, but that's the only time we're going to have. So we've got to take advantage of the times that we have to do it,” he stressed.