Cone compares Aces frontline to Lakers’ Bynum-Gasol

Alaska coach Tim Cone, his team already in the PBA Philippine Cup finals, can’t wait to get his chance of ending the Aces’ 10-year All-Filipino title drought. Cone, the longest tenured mentor in the league and the winningest among active coaches, is also happy to acquire 6-foot-9 potential big man Sam Eman.

And this early, Cone has already coined a perfect phrase in the immediate future partnership of Eman and Sonny Thoss. "It’s like having a Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum of the Los Angeles Lakers, basically because we run the same Triangle Offense patterns," Cone told GMANews.TV. Cone said he was surprised to learn that Eman and his previous team – San Miguel – parted ways with a heavy heart. The veteran mentor believes San Miguel is not keen on keeping Eman since the 27-year-old center spent most of his time riding the bench in two seasons with the Beermen. "The bottom line is, they’re not keen on keeping Eman on the line up because he was put on the reserved list," said Cone. "The guy can talk to other teams and there were other teams talking to him aside from us. It just so happened he made the choice of joining us." "We just treated him to lunch and presented to him our plans on him. That we want him to play alongside Sonny and not as backup and we want him to stay with us for a longer time. I think, he just wants to play. The young man is 27 and needs to play. How long does he wait?" added Cone. Cone, who just steered the Aces to the finals recently after sweeping the Ginebra Gin Kings, also received information that the Beermen were working out a trade that would send Eman to sister team Ginebra using a conduit. Based on PBA rules, teams cannot trade players after the playoffs, which is the reason why the newly-acquired center will see action at the start of the Fiesta Conference on March 20. "They couldn't trade Sam the day before the deadline. Trading deadline was over and you can't trade until end of the conference," said Cone on his Twitter account. "Also, isn't it the spirit of the rule that SMB is not supposed to trade to its sister teams so that they can't manipulate lineups?" "It seems to me that SMB is not keen on keeping him around. The team could have kept him rather than, say like a Mike Holper, and not risked losing him, so why the surprise?" added Cone. The Eman-Thoss partnership is expected to spell a lot of trouble against smaller teams next conference. Cone and the Aces last won an All-Filipino title in 2000 when the team still has on their vaunted lineup guys like Johnny Abarrientos, Jojo Lastimosa, Bong Hawkins, Poch Juinio and Kenneth Duremdes. It was their last run to a successful campaign spanning a decade. The American mentor said he believes playing Purefoods or San Miguel in the finals will be a tough task for his Aces since both teams boast of an explosive line-up. "We’ve played San Miguel when we were preparing for the semifinals and they’re really deep," said Cone. "Purefoods, on the other hand, gave us a nightmare the last time we met in the elims. They’re long and athletic so that’s also a problem for us." – GMANews.TV