If you reach the nba It is something that very few can do, do it with origins as remote as these Rui Hachimura he’s got a great value. In a country like Japanwhere baseball, sumo or football far surpass basketball as the most popular sports, a story like that of the forward Los Angeles Lakers It’s one in a million. Hachimura is not only someone from the fringes of this industry, he is also a figure with a very complicated path. The one who had to overcome it racing barrier real and tangible in the land of the rising sun.
While his mother Makiko Hachimurait was JapaneseMy father, Zakari Jabilwas an immigrant from Benin, west of the African continent. This multicultural condition put him in a situation that was not easy to solve. A United Nations report published in 2006 recognized this disturbing existence of a climate of racial discrimination in Japan. It’s not hard to imagine how many times Rui had to hear the term throughout his life. hafu Oh well tambourine, derogatory and racist words directed at people with Japanese roots and other parts of the world.
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When I was young, Hachimura tried to hide from the people, he hid his face under the hood of his sweatshirt or even avoided standing, because even he felt different from the rest. As if he was moving away from a reality and a framework that rejected him solely because of the color of his skin and his features. A desire to be invisible from the dimensions of his city, Toyama, with less than 450,000 inhabitants, and its provincial spirit, made it even more difficult. There weren’t many people that Rui could see himself reflected in his daily life with, especially in a place where only 2% belonged to a different ethnic group.
Hachimura, unfortunately, had to learn to deal with the stares, the comments, the scorn and of course the hate as well.
“They looked at me because I was different. I got used to it. That’s because there aren’t many black people in Japan. I feel really proud to be half African and half Japanese. I’m weird, but I’m glad I am.” he said on one occasion.
Things were even worse in those more remote parts of Japan’s geography.
“It was quite a challenge to be in other parts of the country, because they didn’t really know who he was.” recognized in 2018 in Bleacher Report. “They were looking at me like I was a **** animal or something.”
Like many other children who experience discrimination, Hachimura found refuge in sports. He first tried his hand at baseball, prompted by his maternal grandfather’s wish. There Rui soon stood out, so much so that his physical qualities attracted attention in other disciplines. In this way, Joji Sakamoto passed through his life.
Sakamoto was his coach Okuda Middle School and recruited youngsters with potential to build a team capable of winning the local tournament. The veteran coach tried his best to convince a Rui who was comfortable on the fringes of baseball. He, aware of the young man’s height, invited him to training, but Hachimura didn’t even show up.
That’s when he “used” Yudai Baba, former Mavs G League affiliate, to cajole this gem until the coach finally earns his trust. Sakamoto was an injection of illusion in a boy who until the age of 13 had not set foot on a pitch, but was responsible for convincing of his true potential. “You look like Michael Jordan.” He told him at the same time that he taught him NBA highlights over and over again.
As he trained, Hachimura gained confidence, allowing him to develop individually to become one of the top projects in the entire country and end up at Meisei High School, where he won three consecutive high school championships.
When he completed his training cycle at age 20 and headed to Gonzaga, Rui Hachimura was already the biggest talent originating from Asia by Yi Jianlian.
However, all this long journey to cross the Pacific would not be enough. In fact, it was just getting started.
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Hachimura arrived in Spokane without mastering English, struggling to learn grammar and going whenever he could to Gonzaga English Language Center, a place that since the 1950s has devoted its efforts to helping international students manage the language. In the first of his three years in the NCAA, the forward only understood Japanese, which limited both his social connections and the ability to spend a lot of time on the court (130 minutes over the course of the season). If it were not Ken Nakagawacollege graduate and one of the assistants on the Gonzaga team, Hachimura would not have passed the first practices at College.
“It was really hard. Really stressful.” recognized ESPN in 2018. “I don’t know how I did it, but I don’t think I’d do it the same way again if I knew it was going to be like this.”
The current Lakers forward put all his effort into burning stadiums and acquiring a language and rules completely foreign to those he has known all his life. series, music and see yourself inside a situation for which there was no return before accelerating their adaptation to a new world and culture.
And only then, when he was able to open up and express himself, did Rui Hachimura show that he was everything they said about him in far away Japan.
Rui Hachimura’s career in the NBA It could be a perfect sports movie script. His story ticks all the boxes for a blockbuster. Rejection from a very early age, social ostracism, an experienced coach with a good eye and an already rampant take-off to the top of the sport. But staying on the final image of the aggressive handshake Adam Silver inside this Plan 2019 Half the movie would be missing. And that’s it for the Japanese all that followed which did not follow the expected projection in the first instance.
First, a damage in the groin in his year rookies added to suspension of the course in March 2020, accordingly postponement of the Olympic Games from Tokyo. Next season, a eye problem stopped any chance of starting the campaign on the right foot sophomore. so until disappear from the face of the earth at the beginning of 2021-2022 for personal reasons related to mental health.
The pressure to be an absolute idol to the masses in Japan, as well as the disappointment of the result he achieved with his National team at a difficult Games in 2021 was too much for someone just 23 years old. He walked away from everything to have the necessary tools to make the definitive leap into his particular NBA career.
Hence change of scenery and piercing in January in Los Angeles could have been such a positive turn in a Hachimura that, surely, is one in a million.
The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the NBA or its organizations.
