Tokyo may have hosted an NBA House with Miami Heat and Toronto Raptor legend Chris Bosh this weekend. Chicago Bull fan favourite Yuki Kawamura may have made his Japanese name playing in this writer’s new Yokohama home. But it’s Utsunomiya, in the Kantō region, that is the real hoops hotbed in Japan.
The beautiful city, famous for gyoza, and now great basketball, is worth more than a bite of your time, and not just for hoops and food. One of the most compelling parts of the city are the century of steps that lead up to the iconic Futaarayama Shrine. A landmark to this terrific town. You can ascend, but you better find a different way down, as I was told.
That’s like walking whilst eating, or talking on the train in the land of the rising sun. It just isn’t done.
If a basketball bounced down those stone steps, mind you, it would find itself on-court for some thrilling 3×3 basketball, which really has become one of basketball’s most borderless and boldest versions of this ever-versatile game, since making its permanent mark in the Olympics.
In Japan especially, its popularity is helping basketball in a country where baseball won’t be beat like Shohei Ohtani. Alongside Kawamura and Rui Hachimura, this form of streetball is getting more kids out and in the game when they don’t have a bat to swing. Catching the bug, even in summers so humid, the cicadas don’t even come out to play like they used to.
This weekend, Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park will host the ALLDAY 5ON5 tournament, supported by Tokyo23. All as MP3 and MVP Hibiki and the ZOOS, led by Nike athlete, 3×3 star and Toyota Boshoku Sunshine Rabbits player Aoi Katsura, look to reclaim their street thrones in Harajuku.
This season for basketball in Japan really has a spring in its sneakers.
But first, this weekend just gone belonged to the 2026 FIBA 3×3 World Tour Utsunomiya Opener. A decade anniversary of blacktop matrimony for the city that also celebrates its actual 150-year anniversary this year. Sealing seven years in a row serving as the opening venue for the tournament. A consistent calendar mark set to continue through 2028.
From Canada to the Far East, BasketballBuzz was in town, like we were a year prior, for the final day. And it didn’t disappoint. All the familiar faces and streetball stars were on hand to dribble the rock. The usual Dennis Rodman like hair, this time rocking the natural look, of Amsterdam’s Worthy de Jong. Strahinja Stojacic of Ub, AKA, Doctor Strange casting spells and skills. Even Utsunomiya’s very own Souleymane Coulibaly, on the poster, who won the three-point contest.
And as for the dunk contest, representing for Ukraine, Dmitry “Smoove” Krivenko beat out two great Brits (Cassidy Leishman with soccer skills and high-flying personality Jeremiah Walker) to take home a trio of tens, bragging rights and the cash prize. Tapping more body parts than a doctor’s reflex hammer (I’m not as good with the wordplay as the “drawing fouls like sketching poultry” MC Knowa Lazarus), as he put down dunks that would be legal in-game. The NBA Dunk Contest could do with this big-three.
As we all know, 3×3 actually requires more than a trio of players. As a reserve takes a seat on a bench thinner than most NBA teams in the playoffs right now. But the fantastic four of Germany’s Skyliners were reduced to three after a horrific injury to Leon Fertig. At first you’d, have been forgiven for thinking his scream was in reaction to making a great play, he was making them all tournament. Yet when it dawned on you what really happened, it was heart-breaking. Many people closer to the action had their faces in their hands and even the MC’s put their mics down for a moment. The rest of the contest was of course subdued.
Yet when the Skyliners came back, Kevin Bryant, Stefan Kojic and sharpshooter and big blocker Niklas Kropp, all visibly shaken up in reaction to their teammate and brother’s awful absence, made it to the finals for Fertig, who we wish a speedy recovery to.
It would have been perfect if they made it all the way, but they faced an enforcing Liman side of brute strength (Andreja Miluntinovic, Mihailo Vasic, Nemanja Zigon and Dorde Simeunovic) and their commanding 21-15 win over the Skyliner side.
Now the rest of the world tour is theirs, like the first round, always on Utsunomiya.
Dunking and dumplings for gyoza.
