Rui Hachimura

I love Team The Japanese. by Rui Hachimura

I love Team The Japanese.

He pointed at me and said: Youre going to the NBA, at that time, I was stupid, I believed him. And he was for real, too. He was serious about it. And I really believed him. And Im really here now. Its crazy.

The half-kids, mixed kids like me, there are a lot of half-black, half-Japanese, they play sports and theyre actually good at it, i think its going to be great for them to see.

Its big for the country, its big for Japan because weve never really had a player like me in Japan playing basketball in the NBA and stuff. Its going to be big and its going to be a dream. It means a lot for me, my family, Japanese basketball the whole country.

We lost three times, in our home, on our home court, we did everything we could do. We've got to get better.

We talked about it before the game, we actually played here like two years ago, an exhibition game or something. A lot of people came, we were looking forward to it, but it is what it is. Can't do anything about it, and everybody is watching on TV.

It was a great experience.