We’re just over halfway through the year and Japan’s calendar has already circled a significant basketball event almost every month.
Back in April, the annual Utsunomiya opener to FIBA’s 3×3 season celebrated a decade of tipping everything off.
A month later, during Japan’s Golden Week national holiday, Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park held its 50th ALLDAY 5ON5 tournament over the long weekend.
Then, last month, Tokyo’s Shinagawa ward reached out with its own ‘Bridge To The World‘, featuring actual Japanese B.League teams playing three-on-three.
It was about time the NBA got in on the action, too.
The association already invited the Land of the Rising Sun into their NBA House with Toronto Raptor and Miami Heat legend Chris Bosh a month back. And now, along with rising sports brand New Balance, they have brought along a current NBA superstar, with even deeper Canadian roots, in the form of Denver Nuggets gold champion, Jamal Murray.
Trying his hand at some Japanese greetings and putting my beginner’s level, after seven years, to shame, Jamal wowed the crowd in a translated talk session with MC MAMUSHI. The host who really does have the most, more than that cliché, as he, and his iconic shades, are always on display to move the crowd through these streetball events in Tokyo, like the yearly ALLDAY fixture.
Murray compared the game to a dance as he broke down how he does exactly that to a defender off the dribble.
Teams of junior to middle high-school girls and boys, wanting to follow in the sneaker steps of the Rui’s (Hachimura and Machida), Yuki’s and Yuta’s (Kawamura and Watanabe respectively) listened attentively and in awe. All before taking to the blue NBA court for their own tournament.
Japanese basketball is rising like the origin of the sun. Only last week, the Las Vegas Aces signed Toyota Antelope and Japan national team star Mai Yamamoto who follows her Olympic teammate, and former WNBA player, Rui Machida to the W.
The future of both the B.Leagues, and the NBA and WNBA, were on display in alternating games over the weekend. All as racks of official orange and white Wilson leather balls, from both brother and sister American leagues, were available to shoot.
That’s what happens when the National Basketball Association sponsors your event. And of course, New Balance, who supplied the red versus white practice vests for the players who will keep them in their lockers forever when they return back to school on Monday morning.
There was even a New Balance pop-up shop and photo booth featuring banners of Tyrese Maxey, Cooper Flagg and Cameron Brink. Not to mention, NB’s very own J.M. The man of the moment who left his autograph on his billboard, signing off. More than leaving his mark on the weekend.
And what a weekend. One that wasn’t washed out by more summer rain than Carl Thomas in this hot and humid land. A brief storm couldn’t stop the reign (word to the Shaq track), like Shinagawa’s delay in game (and change of venue) last month.
The boys and girls teams took on NBA and WNBA names respectively, and in a fitting conclusion, the Nuggets won.
But not before the Denver star, posted up courtside, joining in on a fun shooting contest in the same weekend records were being made in the WNBA one. Murray brought out the blue arrow to show that even in this heat, his stroke was still pure.
Held outside, under the glass ceiling of Tokyo’s Yebisu Garden Place mall, this epic event was quite the spectacle. Mere days after Disney, Pixar and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson cooked up a proud premiere for the live-action ‘Moana’ movie and Maui traditions here.
Just one stop from the Shibuya crossing and below a beautiful building backdrop, Ebisu may just be the new epicentre for Japanese streetball.
You should have seen just how many people showed up just to get a glimpse of a Nuggets legend and NBA All-star.
Jamal Murray told the crowd that he’d be back. No sayonara. One thing’s for sure. Shohei’s sport may be the star here, but basketball is here to stay in Japan. Even Ohtani’s wife Mamiko Tanaka is a former professional basketball player with the Fujitsu Red Wave. Basketball is just beginning to rise here.
And it starts, like in the games’ purest form, in the streets.
