JPN – New coach, same plan for Japan ahead of trip to Tianjin

TOKYO (FIBA Asia Championship) - One step forward, two steps back.

That's what it must have felt like to Japan’s players upon hearing the news that the national team reins were being passed to a new coach this week.

After playing well enough at the FIBA East Asia Championship last month under new Japan boss David Hobbs to qualify for the FIBA Asia Championship, the players learned that the 60-year-old Hobbs had been forced to step down because of a "health issue".

The Japanese Basketball Association (JBA) reacted quickly by appointing Osamu Kuraishi, the former JBA's Hitachi Sunrockers coach, as his replacement.

Kuraishi, the JBA felt, was the best man for the job since he was already with the national team though not in a coaching capacity.

"I'd been the chief and it was almost like a general manager position," Kuraishi said.

"I was in the position where I shouldn't step down onto the floor."

Kuraishi had understood what the JBA were attempting to do with the national team, though, and he had also been in constant contact with Hobbs.

"While we tried to have a long-term vision, with which Hobbs agreed, we (JBA) thought that it would be quite difficult to ask other coaches to share that because it would take some time," Kuraishi said.

"As I already know the current players and what Hobbs had been doing, (the JBA) asked me to take this job."

Kuraishi and Hobbs, who was best known for his stint (1992-98) at the helm of the University of Alabama, had shared the same opinions about the Japan team's shortcomings, and the best way to overcome them.

"Hobbs and I think that Japan lacks size and power," Kuraishi said.

"To make up for that, we need to effectively capitalize on the full-court game and zone defense."

Japan will need a top three finish at the FIBA Asia Championship to earn a trip to the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey.

On Wednesday, as part of their preparations for Tianjin - where the FIBA Asia Championship will be played - Kuraishi and the team were due to fly to Las Vegas to play friendly games against a New Orleans Hornets summer league team and NBDL sides.

Kuraishi doesn’t have much time to get the team ready for Tianjin.

"We'll play some 13 games until the end of July and we'd like to try a lot of things through them," Kuraishi said.

FIBA