How Philippine basketball legend Tim Cone became Heat summer league guest assistant coach

There are plenty of familiar faces on the Miami Heat’s summer league coaching staff.

Heat assistant coach Malik Allen is the team’s summer league head coach for the second straight year. Then fellow Heat assistant coaches Caron Butler and Anthony Carter, video coordinator Dan Bisaccio and the organization’s G League affiliate head coach Kasib Powell are summer league assistant coaches.

But there is one new face on the staff: Tim Cone.

Cone, who is the winningest coach in Philippine Basketball Association history and has come away with a record 24 PBA championships, is serving as a guest assistant coach for the Heat’s summer league team this year. He has coached in the Philippines since 1989.

“He’s great. He’s been nice for me. He’s sort of like a calming influence,” Allen said of having Cone, 64, on his summer staff with the Heat opening its five-game stint at Las Vegas Summer League on Saturday against the Boston Celtics (5:30 p.m., NBA TV). “Just so much experience. He knows players. At the end of the day, you can play a different style of basketball. But at the end of the day, you know players when you’ve been a coach for that long. He’s really kind of been great helping sort of to evaluate our guys and try to put them in positions to succeed and their personalities and how to attack them.

“I’ve been sort of leaning on that with him. Just to get a total outside influence and perspective outside of our guys, it’s kind of nice to have a different voice and just pick their brain.”

Cone’s connection with the Heat is through head coach Erik Spoelstra, who is the NBA’s first Asian-American head coach and of Filipino descent on his mother’s side of the family. Spoelstra and Cone met when Spoelstra visited the Philippines in 2009 and they’ve been friends ever since.

Spoelstra extended the summer league invite to Cone in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic delayed it from actually happening until this year.

“It actually came together because one of our other players in our league came and worked out with the Sacramento Kings and their summer league,” Cone recalls. “So I was on the phone with Spo and he goes, ‘Why aren’t you here doing that with us?’ I go, ‘Dang, I’d love to do it. Give me a chance.’ That was like two years ago and then the pandemic happened. We’ve progressed past that. Last year we were in the playoffs in my own league back home, so I couldn’t come. Then this year after his playoffs, we spoke again and the subject was brought up. Lo and behold, I’m here.”

Soon, Cone is expected to welcome Spoelstra back to the Philippines

As an assistant coach for USA Basketball, Spoelstra will likely have a chance to coach in the Philippines, which is one of three countries scheduled to host the 2023 FIBA World Cup along with Japan and Indonesia.

“It’s just truly hard to imagine,” Cone said of Spoelstra’s popularity in the Philippines. “I don’t want to use the term god-like, but it’s almost like that. That was the big thing when I came over here, people found out I was coming to work with an NBA summer league team and were like, ‘Wow, that’s great.’ Then they found out it was the Miami Heat and Spo, and it just exploded.”

But Spoelstra made sure to emphasize how beloved Cone is in the Philippines.

“I mean, he has won 24 championships,” Spoelstra said. “He’s an absolute legend over there and he’s still young as a coach, so he could still go for another 20 years. There’s no telling where he’ll end up at that point. I got to know him when I made my first trip over there with the NBA and got to know him and his staff, starting going to his practices and his games and then we just continued the friendship over the years.”

Cone is working to make the most, but also enjoy, this NBA opportunity.

“I think the big thing is in anything you do as a coach, you watch the NBA games when you’re on the outside and you go, ‘Wow, this is really great,’” Cone said. “But you always see the finished product. Then they go off into halftime and you wonder what the heck are they talking about there, what are they doing in practice, what are they doing that’s different from what we do. That’s what this experience is all about. I’m inside. I’m seeing it. Just to even talk about it gives me goosebumps.”

YURTSEVEN OUT SATURDAY

After joining the Heat in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, center Omer Yurtseven’s status for Las Vegas Summer League is now up in the air.

Allen said following Friday’s practice that Yurtseven will not play in Saturday’s summer league matchup against the Celtics because of a quad injury. Whether Yurtseven will play in any of the Heat’s five games in Las Vegas is unclear.

“Our docs get out here Sunday night or Monday morning,” Allen said. “So just see what they say and we’ll just kind of take it from there.”

Yurtseven suffered the injury while playing in World Cup qualifying games in recent weeks as a member of the Turkish national team. It’s not believed to be a serious injury, as Yurtseven was putting up shots following Friday’s practice.

“He tried to get a workout in and it just felt tight,” Allen said. “So we’ll just see how it goes, see what the doc says over the weekend and we’ll just kind of take it day by day from there.”

Yurtseven is on a fully guaranteed standard contract and is on track to be on the Heat’s 15-man roster for next season.