Tim Cone did the games for television in the Finals of the PBA Philippine Cup, a stint that made him available for the press and gave him true first hand account of the action taking place on the floor between San Miguel Beer and his former team, Alaska.

Now coaching Barangay Ginebra, Cone was a good subject for interviews outside of the championship series, obliging every time reporters caught him while he was out of the panel, whether to take a leak or have a snack during lulls in the game.

Cone, who is now the winningest coach of all-time after steering San Mig Coffee to just the league’s fifth Grand Slam two seasons ago, was very accommodating.

No one, not even the veteran sportswriters, could press him for a bold answer, though.

“We’ll see. I’m excited to play again. We’ll see,” said Cone when someone asked when his first title, and 17th overall in his career, will come for the crowd-darling Gin Kings.

“The team is getting better, that much I can say,” he continued with a smile. “Other than that, I really can’t say when (a championship will come). But we are going to work hard for it.”

Needless to say, with that many titles under his belt, Cone has had success with every team he has handled. He also won a Grand Slam with Alaska, in 1996, with a core that had all-time greats Jojo Lastimosa and Johnny Abarrientos.

His transfer at Ginebra is, obviously, a move by management to not only make the Gin Kings enjoy the popularity that they have, but to also win championships once more.

Ginebra, whose charisma stemmed from the era when Robert Jaworski handled the team starting the mid-1980s, has not won a championship this decade, even with a lineup that has former MVPs Mark Caguioa and Jay-Jay Helterbrand.

And that, for the millions of its fans, is being viewed as an underachievement.

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Since the 7-foot Greg Slaughter came aboard as the No. 1 pick in the Draft three seasons ago, Ginebra became his team.

There are no its and buts about it.

Caguioa still has some game, Helterbrand has slowed down a step or two and LA Tenorio is entering the twilight of his career. The trio, despite its talent and big fighting hearts, simply cannot carry the fight for the Gin Kings.

Japeth Aguilar was also said to be the future of Ginebra, but has not played to the potential his handlers think he has.

The high-leaping 6-foot-9 beanpole out of Western Kentucky University in the US NCAA simply doesn’t have the willingness to bang bodies inside and become a dominant force.

For Aguilar to be an effective offensive weapon, the opposing team needs to be focused on stopping Slaughter for Aguilar to have some leeway. If Slaughter is not doubled, there are a lot of people in the league who can stop Aguilar one-on-one despite his height.

Slaughter is a player much in the same mold as reigning two-time MVP June Mar Fajsrdo, who, at the rate San Miguel Beer is going, looks ready to claim a third straight MVP and establish all sorts of records this early in his career.

Only Slaughter can prevent that from happening, and a Ginebra team that functions well under the tutelage of Cone is one of the very few teams given the chance to stop the well-oiled San Miguel crew from dominating the league with Fajardo leading the way.

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Cone obviously wants to maximize the talent of Slaughter in the paint and brought in a relatively short import in Othyus Jeffers to lead the Kings in the Commissioner’s Cup that got off the ground on Wednesday afternoon at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.

Signing the 6-foot-4 Jeffers also sends off another signal: that Cone and his staff have now acknowledged that their former go-to-guys from the outside like Caguioa, Tenorio and Helterbrand need a lot of help.

Jeffers will be playing in a tournament that allows imports of 6-foot-9 in height. One team, the Mahindra Enforcers, have Augustus Gilchrist who is above 7 feet as a concession for bowing out early in the Philippine Cup.

In short, Slaughter will have his hands full trying to contain these behemoths night in and out. I doubt if Aguilar could hold his own against imports who are beefier than him and are as agile if not more mobile than he is.

This tournament, in this corner’s humble opinion, will showcase the real worth of Slaughter as a franchise player. He will not only be depended upon to defend, he will also need to score to help Jeffers out.

I will be one very interested spectator this conference and will be keeping an eye on Ginebra. I would want to see how the long off-season for the Kings, after they bowed out in the quarterfinals of the Philippine Cup, was used by Cone to mold the Kings into a championship-caliber team.

I would also want to see how good Slaughter has become.

Fajardo needs a worthy opponent in the shaded lane, if only to make this league even more interesting.