The words Rui Hachimura (26) of the Los Angeles Lakers left regarding the Japanese national team have naturally caused a stir among Japanese basketball officials and fans.
“I don’t want to play for the Japan national team with the current policy.”
“I’m saying this thinking about Japanese basketball.”
Head coach Tom Horvath, who has just been chosen to continue as head coach, has made a number of bombshell comments about the Japan Basketball Association (JBA). I won’t go into details because it has already been talked about in various ways, but behind the emergence of this story is the fact that communication between key players and managers is not smooth.
Association faced with reality, pros and cons of Hachimura
In the past seven years, three NBA players have been born (Yuta Watanabe, Hachimura, Yuki Kawamura), and the Japanese national team also appeared to be on the upswing, winning two World Cups and having a good showing at the Paris Olympics. It was reported that the B League was also seeing an increase in attendance, giving the impression that the Japanese basketball world as a whole was believed to be moving forward. In the midst of all this, the world’s most accomplished athlete confronted him with the reality.
On the other hand, if Hachimura, who spoke out, said that he was speaking “for the sake of Japanese basketball,” it is questionable whether it would have been best to communicate this through the media at a time when the Japanese national team was playing in the Asian Cup qualifiers without him.
In such a situation, it is understandable that there will be pros and cons on both sides. As Watanabe said on the 28th, the first thing we need to do is improve communication. On top of that, JBA must find a way to overcome its predicament.
