Team Pilipinas 5 coach known at month’s end

MANILA, Philippines – Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) commissioner Sonny Barrios will be returning from a three-week US trip carrying with him a special package. The parcel is expected to bear the name of the coach tasked to select, form and train the RP men’s basketball team for next year’s Fiba-Asia Men’s Basketball Championship. Barrios left for the US last week to attend to some personal matters, but sources within the league said he already anointed the person to become the next high-profiled coach to handle the all-pro RP five. The league commissioner returns to the country two weeks from now and will announce a few days his choice for the RP team mentor. Red Bull’s Yeng Guiao has been the leading candidate for the job, although also being considered are Barangay Ginebra’s Jong Uichico, Tim Cone of Alaska and Talk `N Text’s Chot Reyes, the same coach who handled the PBA-backed national team that saw action in the FIBA-Asia Olympic qualifying tournament in Tokushima, Japan last year. The PBA Board has given Barrios the free hand to choose the next RP mentor from among the current coaches in the league. But Barrios said his work is over once a coach has been into place. “As per our agreement with the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP), it will be the coach who will select the players that will comprise the team. Once I named the coach, the headache belongs to him already," said Barrios in previous interviews. “The appointed coach might form a national training pool of as many players as he wants," added the league commissioner. The 2009 Fiba-Asia championship serves as the qualifying event for the 2010 World Basketball championship in Istanbul, Turkey. The top three finishers in the meet will represent Asia to the quadrennial tournament. – GMANews.TV