Throughout his coaching career, Jong Uichico had the privilege of coaching some of the greatest players who played in the PBA and helped him win championships.
From two-time Most Valuable Player Danny Ildefonso, former Rookie of the Year Danny Seigle to veteran guard Olsen Racela at San Miguel, to MVP winners Mark Caguioa, Eric Menk and Jayjay Helterbrand and Jayson Castro and Ranidel de Ocampo at TNT, all of them became a big part of Uichico’s success as coach.
The nine-time PBA champion is making his return as coach in the big league as he will succeed Frankie Lim as new mentor of the NLEX Road Warriors.
Uichico admitted he didn’t miss coaching at all as he was very much involved in basketball, doing things in a different capacity as head of the Coaches Commission and led a group of mentors touring around the country to conduct basketball clinics/seminars on top of being one of the assistant coaches of Gilas Pilipinas the past five years.
“Para namang hindi ko rin na-miss kasi I was still involved one way or another,” Uichico told Journey @Pinoystep.com in an exclusive interview.
“I do analyst work (during the PBA coverage), so parang ikaw na rin nagko-coach. You second guess the coach and you’re analyzing. Parang nagpa-practice ka na rin noon. You’re also with Gilas and you’re coaching. The only difference now is you make the final decision with you being the head coach.”
Uichico looked back at his coaching journey and felt fortunate to have handled some of the best ever players, whom he shared nine championships
“It’s hard to say that your best players are your best five. There are a lot who I’ve handled, the ones I could consider as go-to-guys,” added Uichico. “You have Danny I, Danny S, Eric Menk, Mark Caguioa, Olsen. They’re all go-to-guys.”
“Siyempre, you also need a lot of those blue-collar workers, utility guys, sacrifice guys. You have Olsen as the facilitator, but you also need guys like Freddie Abuda, Nic Belasco, Mike Mustre. At Ginebra, you had Rudy Hatfield, Willie Wilson and Sunday Salvacion.”
Some of the players Uichico mentioned had already made it to the PBA’s All-Time Greatest Players via default as some of them had won MVPs while others were fortunate enough to crack the list.
But there’s one player, whom he believes should have been there as early as a few years ago when the league named its 40 Greatest Players — ‘The Bull’ Nelson Asaytono.
While much credit was given to the group of Ildefonso, Seigle and Racela in the resurgence of San Miguel Beer from the late 1990s to mid-2000s, Uichico paid tribute to Asaytono as the man who started the Beermen’s resurrection.
“I will only base it on players whom I got associated with, but on top of my head, one player that I think has a shot of making it is Nelson Asaytono, who brought San Miguel Beer to where it was (during that eight year stretch),” said Uichico. “Siya yung pillar noon and we could have not done it without him.”
In 1996, San Miguel agreed to trade Ato Agustin to acquire the services of Asaytono and immediately, ‘The Bull’ became the cornerstone of the Beermen’s offense.
At San Miguel, Asaytono had the finest seasons of his career, especially in 1997 when he nearly won the MVP.
Several times in his career Asaytono was deprived of winning the MVP, but the athletic power forward became the Best Player of the Conference twice while playing for San Miguel.
Although Asaytono didn’t win a championship with San Miguel, he was the team’s bonafide big man, averaging 23.1 points and 7.1 rebounds during the 1997 season.
He kept the Beermen afloat until Ildefonso emerged to become the next most important player of San Miguel until he left in 1999 to move to Pop Cola and eventually, with Red Bull where he was reunited with his old coach, Yeng Guiao, and won a championship in 2002.
“On top of my head, he should be on the greatest list. It’s long overdue,” added Uichico.
