According to LA Tenorio, he will officially call the shots for the Gilas Pilipinas Youth next year.
When the coaching job for the Gilas Pilipinas Youth was offered to him, LA Tenorio thought long and hard about it.
Now, the current Gilas assistant coach is excited to take the reins from Josh Reyes and train the next generation of national team players.
Tenorio knows he has big shoes to fill.
“Excited at the same time a lot of pressure because [I have] big shoes to fill dun sa ginawa ni coach Josh. Alam naman natin kung ano ginawa niya sa developmental at tsaka sa Youth team,” said the court general of the younger Reyes, who has two FIBA World Cup appearances under his belt.
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Still, Tenorio is already looking forward to laying the foundation for the team, which is likely to run the same system the senior’s team is running under Tim Cone.
“But looking forward to be head coach. Excited kung ano yung mangyayari. But the bottomline for me is I’m not thinking right away about winning or getting into the position we want to. But I think the bottomline is really to develop a lot of younger players and future Gilas Pilipinas men players,” he said.
“It’s very crucial now because most likely the system I’m gonna run is the same system we run in the men’s team to have that transition lang.”
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But fans have to wait a little longer before seeing the concurrent Ginebra pllaymaker call the shots for the youth team.
“Next year pa, matagal pa. August pa. Maglalaro pa ako sa PBA kasi once a year lang naman liga,” he told reporters after Gilas’ win over New Zealand in the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers.
Does that mean the Ginebra veteran would retire from playing professional basketball by then?
Tenorio was non-committal.
“We’ll see. I’ll see. I haven’t thought about it but we’ll see,” he said.