As they did in the past, Tim Cone and Jojo Lastimosa share the spotlight once more as they will be bestowed with the two highest honors by the PBA Press Corps during its Annual Awards Night on Monday at the Novotel Manila Araneta City.
Cone of Ginebra is named the winner of the Virgilio ‘Baby’ Dalupan Coach of the Year, while Lastimosa of TNT is conferred with the Danny Floro Executive of the Year by the men and women who cover the PBA beat.
Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman Richard Bachmann will be the guest of honor and keynote speaker at the formal event presented by ArenaPlus together with Cignal TV.
Hosts are Rizza Diaz and Sev Sarmenta.
This will be the fourth regular Coach of the Year honor for the 65-year-old Cone, who steered the Kings to their toughest championship yet when they prevailed over the powerhouse guest team Bay Area Dragons to win the Season 47 Commissioner’s Cup in a thrilling finals that went the full seven-game route.
Owner of a record 25 championships, Cone previously won the award named after the late great Baby Dalupan in 1994, 1996, and 2014. He was voted ‘Coach of the Bubble’ when the league held the Philippine Cup for its lone conference of the season at the height of the pandemic in 2020.
Lastimosa, meanwhile, will be presented with the award in honor of the late Crispa team owner Danny Floro for his splendid work as team manager of the Tropang Giga by putting together the right pieces that eventually resulted in the franchise winning its first championship in six years during the Governors’ Cup.
Cone and Lastimosa, of course, had a long history of winning together during their time with the Alaska Aces when their coach-player partnership produced nine championships for the fabled franchise, including the 1996 grand slam.
Incidentally, Bachmann was also once part of the Alaska team as a player and later as an executive.
Other awardees to be recognized are the Gilas Pilipinas Team, which won the gold in the 19th Asian Games (President’s Award), Jio Jalalon (Defensive Player of the Year), Roi Sumang (William Adornado Comeback Player of the Year), Jericho Cruz (Mr. Quality Minutes), CJ Perez (Scoring Champion), Jayson Castro (Order of Merit), the quintet of Justin Arana, Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser, Ato Ular, Encho Serrano, and Tyler Tio (All-Rookie Team), and San Miguel-TNT (Game of the Season).
PBA chairman Ricky Vargas, together with the league’s Board of Governors and Commissioner Willie Marcial, is among the invited special guests during the affair.
