Guiao finally ‘nails’ Caidic

source: Tito Talao | mb.com.ph

Burger King coach Yeng Guiao no longer talks much of the one who got away from him recently.

Instead, he speaks more of the one who slipped through the cracks nine years ago when he was still with Red Bull, the one who will be on the bench for him when he coaches a PBA Selection against a visiting NBA Legends squad Friday at the Araneta Coliseum.

Both Guiao and Allan Caidic could afford to laugh about it now.

“Oh yes, I think we still own the rights to him,” Guiao said Tuesday during practice, recalling that moment in 2000 when expansion Red Bull, fishing for a big one in the dispersal draft, picked Caidic, then the playing-coach of Barangay Ginebra, from the Kings’ secret unprotected list.

“We drafted him and forced him into retirement,” Guiao said, laughing at the thought.

Caidic, who along with Alvin Patrimonio, Ronnie Magsanoc, and Kenneth Duremdes, will join members of the Powerade-Team Pilipinas against NBA greats Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dominique Wilkins, Vlade Divac and Robert Horry, included his name in the unprotected list apparently to avoid losing one active Ginebra player.

With a gem of an intuition, however, Red Bull and Guiao cast their net and reeled in the biggest catch of all ¬ the king of the PBA’s three-point shooters.

Thrown into quandary, Cadic, who owns the league record in 3-point shot conversions for one game with 15 set in 1989 with Presto Tivoli, opted to hang up his jersey rather than abandon his post with the Kings.

“Oo nga. Napa-aga tuloy pagreretiro natin,” Caidic says, shaking his head but smiling. “Pero okey naman. At least ngayon, nagkaroon ng chance, kahit exhibition game, na makalaro ako sa kanya.”

Guiao says their move back then to acquire Caidic was premised on making him the cornerstone of the Red Bull franchise.

“Of course we would have played him. Why not?” says Guiao. “The reason we drafted him was because we wanted to play him.”

It took nine years, but Guiao is finally getting one of the players he had originally wanted.

“That’s something I was not able to accomplish when we drafted him,” he says. At least now, naka-ensayo ko na rin bilang player ko si Allan.”

And how did Caidic turn out in his first practice with his should-have-been coach?

Not much. Just standard Triggerman fare: 10 three-point shots coming off picks or from anywhere at The Arena in San Juan.