Allan Caidic

Allan Vito Flores Caidic (born June 15, 1963) is a Filipino former professional basketball player in the Philippine Basketball Association.

He is considered by many to be the greatest shooter the country has ever produced, thus, earning the moniker, "The Triggerman".

Finally in 1981 under coach Roberto Flores, Caidic got his break and delivered well.

In a deciding game between the UE Red Warriors and the FEU Tamaraws, Caidic missed two crucial free throws that handed the UAAP championship to the unbeaten Tamaraws.

In 1982, he bounced back by leading the Red Warriors to a comeback win against the UP Fighting Maroons in the finals, scoring 30 points to capture the UAAP basketball championship and won the Most Valuable Player award.

In 1983, Caidic was seeded number one in the UAAP one-on-one championships.

Unfortunately, he only placed second to UST's rookie Silverio Palad.

He also played for commercial teams internationally, notably the Development Bank of Rizal (1983) that finished third in an invitational tournament in Malaysia and the Country Fair Hotdogs in the 1984 William Jones Cup tournament.

In his final two years, he, along with Jerry Codiñera, led the Red Warriors to back-to-back championships in 1984–1985, the last University of the East basketball team ever to win a championship in the 20th Century.

At the same time, he played for several teams in the Philippine Amateur Basketball League while playing for the national team.

He played for several PABL teams such as CF Sharp, ESQ Marketing and the Magnolia Ice Cream/Lagerlite.

In 1984–1985, Caidic was part of Danding Cojuangco’s national basketball development program, which formed a team that represented the Philippines in international competitions, which aimed win the 1986 Asian Basketball Confederation crown (now known as the FIBA Asia Championship) which was last won by the Philippines in 1973.

In 1984–1985, Caidic played in the PBA for the all-amateur guest NCC national team, preparing for international competitions, and went on to win the 1985 PBA Reinforced Conference.

In the 1985 William Jones Cup, Caidic played in the San Miguel Beer-Philippines’ overtime victory against the US, coached by Gene Keady, in the finals.

His shooting mentor, Arthur "Chip" Engelland, scored 43 points while Caidic scored 21, to lead the Filipinos in a 108–100 overtime victory to capture the Jones Cup title.

Keady, later, told Ron Jacobs that he had the highest respect for two Filipino cagers whom he called 'Heckle and Jeckle' (referring to Allan Caidic and Samboy Lim).

He led the Philippines in capturing the 1985 South East Asian Games Gold Medal and in 1986, he led the last all-amateur national team to capture the FIBA Asia Championship gold medal and scored 22 points in an 82–72 win over China in the finals.

He is also the only Filipino player to win the William Jones Cup championships twice, once as an amateur in 1985 and once as a professional in 1998.

After winning the Asian Championship, the Philippines qualified for the 1986 FIBA World Championship at Madrid, Spain, but due to the political crisis in the country (that led to the 1986 Philippine People Power EDSA Revolution), the national team did not participate in the tournament.

He is a four-time Asian Games veteran as a player and shared this distinction with Alvin Patrimonio, as the only PBA players to play in four Asiads (1986, 1990, 1994, 1998).

In 1986, he led an all-amateur national team to an Asian Games bronze medal, after a heart breaking controversial loss to South Korea in the semi-final.

In 1986, he returned to the PBA playing for the all-amateur Magnolia-Philippines who were at that time preparing for the 1986 Asian Games.

He played college hoops at the University of the East before joining the PBA in 1987, where he broke several Philippine and PBA all-time records—including the most points scored in a single game (79 points), the most three-point field goals made in a single game (17 triples; breaking his previous record of 15 triples), the most consecutive freethrows made (76), and the most three-point field goals in a career (1,242 triples; later surpassed by Jimmy Alapag).

He has played with several PBA teams and won numerous championships.

In 1987, he was drafted first overall by the Great Taste Coffee Makers and played alongside Ricardo Brown to lead the team to the PBA Open Conference finals (In Game 3, he equalled Brown's PBA all-time record for the most points scored by a Filipino in a single finals game – 48 points) and later captured his first PBA-All Filipino Cup championship.

In his rookie season, he earned the 1987 PBA Rookie of the Year award and was named in the All-Star Mythical Five Selection, where he became the third first year-rookie player ever to be named in the Mythical Five Selection after Arnie Tuadles (1979) and Ricardo Brown (1983).

He also finished the season as the first rookie player ever to lead the league in scoring.

On November 2, 1989, Caidic scored 68 points and 15 three-point field goals made in a single game to lead Presto Tivoli past the Alaska Air Force in a high-scoring overtime game 175–159.

Both teams' combined points was one of the most in the PBA history.

In 1990, he set the PBA all-time record for the most three-point field goals made in a single season (160 triples) and led Presto Tivoli to a championship title.

He was named the 1990 PBA Most Valuable Player and was selected to play for the first all-pro national team coached by Robert Jaworski, bound for the Asian Games.

In one of his Asian Games appearances, he led the national team's second half comeback win, 86–78, against Japan with 34 points despite playing with a broken hand and held scoreless in the first half.

He played for the Philippine national basketball team including the 1998 Philippine Centennial Team.

While in the league, he was considered one of the best three-point shooters in Asia.

The vaunted Chinese national basketball team recognized his ability by always reminding their players to be on the lookout for "Philippine No. 8", referring to Caidic's regular jersey number while playing for the National Team.

Caidic is from Paete, Laguna and started playing basketball when he was in his fifth grade at Roosevelt College and in the Inter Subdivision Leagues at Brookside in Cainta before trying out for college teams such as the Ateneo Blue Eagles and the Mapua Cardinals but was unsuccessful.

He then tried out for the Letran Knights and was accepted.

But after realizing that Letran does not have an engineering program, he left.

Allan was then taking up Mechanical Engineering.

He was later accepted in University of the East (UE) but had to sit out on the reserve list as UE's lineup was already complete.