Cone says Ginebra has ‘no desire’ to trade Slaughter

Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — Barangay Ginebra head coach Tim Cone said Greg Slaughter’s status with the Gin Kings is “in limbo” as it remains unclear whether the star center would still rejoin the team after going on a surprise sabbatical last February.

Appearing on The Chasedown show, Cone said the Gin Kings—with the exception of some players—have been kept in the dark since the pandemic as far as the latest on Slaughter is concerned.

“We haven’t had much contact with Greg. We had some right before the pandemic started before we started to close things down,” Cone said Saturday.

“He left for the States and I know he’s spoken to LA a couple of times. He’s spoken to some of the players. But I really have no update on what he’s doing or what his whereabouts are,” he added. “So in terms of Greg, we’re kind of in limbo.”

Cone doesn’t think anything will be resolved soon or not until things begin to go back to normal.

“I don’t think that will become clear until everything settles down and we’re starting to getting back to work. Maybe we’ll hear that he wants to get back to work, we don’t know,” the former Philippine team coach said.

What’s certain, however, is that Ginebra, according to Cone, has no intention of trading Slaughter.

“Everything’s dead right now. Nobody’s talking about anything in terms of trade. Too many things up in the air like who’s gonna pay contracts, financial matters things of that sort and the other thing is that Greg would have to come in and work out a contract with a new team even if he was traded,” Cone said.

“But we don’t have conversations, we don’t have any desire to trade Greg.”

The 32-year-old Slaughter has helped the Gin Kings win four championships, including the Governors’ Cup last year.

And Cone believes the 7-foot Slaughter remains an integral part of Ginebra.

“We won the last championship with Greg and he’s healthy and when he’s going, he’s a dominant player in the league. And I like the fact that especially towards the end of the last conference, he was really starting to mold his game a little to be a more perimeter-type of big man,” he said.

“He was shooting a little bit more from the perimeter, he was running the floor a little bit better, setting high screens, doing those things and not just try to live in the post area and things we’ve encouraged him to do he was taking it to heart and I thought he was really making some real strong progress.”

Cone hopes to continue where Ginebra and Slaughter left off last season—that’s if he decides to return.

“I think that’s the direction that we would go in if he would come back and join us. We would continue to work on him as a perimeter big and not just a power inside guy.”