How Japanese Basketball Became The Best In Asia

Why is Japan's basketball team so much better than China and the Philippines, even though those countries actually value basketball way more? It is because we have a slam dunk enemy 30 years ago, and now it is finally happening in real life. Right. They spoke it into existence. Now, big shout out to the men's Japanese basketball team. They just qualified for the Paris Olympics, which is a big deal. And they're the only Asian team to do so. So far, China and the Philippines, I think in theory could, but they'd have to win like every single game. And it's statistically highly unlikely. It's just not going to happen. And you know what? The interesting thing is, Andrew, Japan as a consumer base, they don't really value basketball that much, but they're still really good at it. So I think this sparked a lot of Internet comments. If you guys follow Asia basketball circles and just NBA circles in general, people are talking about what does it mean for their governmental systems, their societies, their just team development in general. But also, what does it mean? And what does it say about the teamwork amongst those countrymen? Maybe the teamwork amongst Chinese guys. I don't know. Maybe this is symbolic. It's probably really bad. No, honestly, if you go on the China boards, they are ripping apart Team China right now. Yao Ming's frowning in the stands. Make sure you like subscribe, turning your notifications, Andrew. Real quick, we got to address Andrew. Got to give a huge shout out to Team Japan. Andrew, Yuta Watanabe, he's in the NBA right now. Rui Hachimura didn't even play because he had a long playoffs. Yutai Baba is in the G League. Yuku Togashi played in the G League. Tomonaga is the Japanese. Steph Curry is a sharpshooter. And they got this short JJ Barea flamethrower called Yuki Kawamura. This guy's like five, six. Yeah, and that's crazy to see a really small Asian dude tearing it up in the on the international stage, guys. Yeah, I mean, I guess a lot of people are talking about Japan sports systems. First of all, I do want to shout out the Philippines did just beat Team China. Right. So technically they are the better team right now. Right, right. Right. But I will say it is interesting that in the Philippines, basketball is super popular. They love basketball, number one. And then in China, I would say they do love basketball a lot, too. And in Japan, I heard nationally basketball is number three or maybe four. I think I heard it's number five, possibly. And like you said, Japan, China invested two billion USD in their basketball program. You know, ever since 08 with Yao Ming and Yijian Lian, they sort of like peaked off. In fact, Andrew, a lot of people said the Chinese national team basketball has regressed. So anyway, we're going to get into it, guys. This is a lot of talk. You guys, we are very passionate about basketball. We study the NBA. We do know a lot about international basketball at all. Of course, not as much as some of you guys. But yeah, Andrew, quick thoughts. Japan's crushing it in all sports, individual and team right now. What does it say about their systems? I mean, they're good at I heard they're outperforming at rugby, soccer, even volleyball right now. Obviously, they have the top boxer in their weight class. No, yeah, anyway. And it's like, whoa. And the skateboarders are killing, too. And it's just like, oh, and the snowboarders, right? They're like all these very American sports that America actually values. Japan is actually very good at. It's not just like sharpshooting and things like like curling, you know, in the Winter Olympics that, you know, shout out to them. But like not as many people value, people don't really care about that sport. But I'm saying these are actually sports that people care about. Yeah. Andrew, here's another quick thought. I'm going to keep it real. I'm not as familiar with other country's situations, but I know that Chinese men, they suck at team sports. Man, they suck, bro. But there was a time when China did have a decent basketball team with Yao. But since then, they really haven't reached that level again. Right. A lot of people say the Philippines is also not as good as they should be at basketball, but it may be for different reasons than China. Philippines may suffer from some sort of state sponsored support, whereas China is almost like lacking at a professional or like elite tier, like some sort of passion for the game. Yeah, yeah. Right off the bat, I do think that if the Philippines team took all the Filipinos from that were like of mixed heritage and made like a Philippines diaspora team, I don't know that would like, you know, a bunch more Jordan Clarkson's, which Jordan Clarkson is like. He's like a fourth or a half Filipino. So it's like if they had that whole team, maybe they would be better, too. A lot of people are pointing out that it actually just has to do with Japan being a first world country. So a lot of foreign nationals want to go there to live and train, whether they're a fellow pro or as a trainer. So that really ups the level of like training for all sports, because people from around the world find Japan such a pleasant place to live. Oh, you're saying just even a lot of good coaches and other players and kind of sports systems, they like to just be in Japan. So, of course, it attracts them. Yeah, it's just a great place to live. Obviously, you know, if you can kind of like fit in or obviously learn to speak Japanese, it helps a lot. Andrew, I came up with the ten S's the teams need to have like in Asia, but any team just needs to have like good team sports. Andrew, they need state sponsored systems, individual skill and team selflessness. They need soulfulness and genuine spirit, seriousness and studious scrutiny. And I'm telling you right now, the easiest way to put it is Japan has all ten out of all ten for both individual and team sports. And I think they're missing different S's. But China and the Philippines are missing some or a lot of these ten. All right, everybody, let's get in the comments section. All right, Andrew, somebody said, you know, Kuroko, no basket. The Slam Dunk movie finally came to life. The manga started in 1990 and or the TV show started in 1993. They just had a high budget CGI movie of Slam Dunk in 2022. You know, what's crazy is some of those moves that were animated in Slam Dunk had not really even been done in the NBA until maybe recently or some people online and streetball started doing those moves. So what I'm saying is that was a super advanced streetball basketball anime. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that creator and all shout out to all the players at Shihoku High School. They were doing moves that nobody had seen before. Yeah. Like, you know, in the animation, they were doing a bunch of moves. A lot of people were talking about how Japan has blue lock for soccer. And that came to life, too. So they were just like, is everything that Japan just makes a manga or anime about just going to happen? Does the manga reflect reality or does reality reflect the manga? It's the first time Japan has qualified without being the host nation in the Olympics for basketball in 48 years. A lot of people were talking about how the women's teams in general are just way more competitive. Japan actually got second place for women's right overall. Obviously, they don't expect to do that well in the Olympics. A lot of people think they might get crushed in Paris, which is probably possible. Right. Because of the way they've sectioned out. You need one African team. You need one Asia team. It's the bracketing. Yeah, it's unfortunate. I mean, still, but still, I mean, that's Serbia and Slovenia are going to miss out due to the way they come out with the bracketing or whatever. But why do you think that Asia women's teams are so much better? I mean, China's women's team is way better relative within Asia and outside of Asia than its men's team. Uh, I would have to say, I guess there could be some type of pooling difference of like the pool talent pool of maybe also perhaps maybe a lot of the men are in the military in China to the some of those men theoretically could have grown up to being pretty good athletes. And then also, uh, maybe women's teams teamwork, like they just buy in it together better. I don't know if they're less selfish or whatever, but maybe there's something to that. There might be something about the way the men are raised. Who knows? Right. Somebody said literally it's just the luck of generational talents. If you look at Japan's team right now, they got all the generational talents that are NBA or borderline NBA players. And in 08, China had a bunch of NBA players. You know, they had a Yao Ming, Wang Jiji, Menge Batyr, Yi Jianlian. And that was just like the luck of that era. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes it just comes down to that. I do think it's luck and timing. That's part of it. Somebody said it's not it's just about systems in general. Japan has clearly invested a ton of money into its systems. And they said in the Philippines, you either have to be a rich kid or the son of a pro player to get into the right academies. And in China, usually only middle or lower middle class people give up their children to basketball academies to to have them be trained for the rest of their life, because it's such like, I guess, a low probability success outcome. Right. That's interesting. Yeah. Like we said, guys, I don't know. Somebody said Japan is good at rugby, skateboarding, rock climbing, boxing, volleyball. They're just like, oh, they're just having like major success in all of them right now. Somebody was saying China just really regressed. Andrew, a lot of the players right now in the CBA are getting paid so much. They might they might be making a million dollars a year that they feel no pressure to go play in Europe or like Australia. Oh, very less pressure to be better, even because they're already like getting paid so much. I mean, that's interesting. But usually you'd think that if you were paying players so much, it would produce the best talent. But I guess not. Yeah. I heard that the Chinese players are really spoiled. They get all the endorsements from leaning and peak and anta in the country because China is a huge consumer market. But they're actually like not challenging themselves to get better and see like other schemes. Yeah. I mean, people said that China has dropped to fourth in Asia, Japan, Lebanon, Philippines, China, South Korea, Iran, Jordan. That is the ranking of the FIBA national basketball teams. Now, a lot of people were just talking about how Japan just spends its money wisely. For example, a lot of people were talking about corruptions in the Philippines. All the money that should be spent developing the sport ends up in the pockets of the politicians and the businessmen. It's a little bit like soccer in China, Andrew. Soccer in China. I think China, I mean, even basketball in China has some corruption issues. But I heard soccer in China is incredibly corrupt. You know, people are just getting their like nephew to play on the team who's not even good at all. Dave, I actually have this theory, too, that I think Japan retained a lot of the talent and it didn't like a lot of Japanese people. The diaspora of Japanese people is not as wide as the diaspora of the Philippines or even China. Yeah, I think that when they have a diaspora, they're just international students learning and then they come back. But I think a lot of people want to stay and live in Japan versus a lot of good talent, to be honest, does leave the Philippines at a young age. And even like, you know, a lot of Chinese people, they like to immigrate to other places, too. So I guess that could be part of it as well. Yeah, Japan's retaining all the talent. All right. So if I was to analyze from what I know, China and the Philippines are on my 10 S scale. China definitely has state sponsored systems, right? Right. And I would say some of the players have individual skill, but definitely I'm going to give them a big L on team selflessness. Basketball in a five on five schematic sense is a lot about teamwork, right? Yeah. But but what they do love in China that I see is very, very popular is streetball one on ones, two on twos, three on threes. I saw moves, right? Yeah. Some of those guys that I see the highlights of, they look like they maybe could be professional basketball players, but they probably cannot play a five on five game. Right. The schematic IQ, right? A lot of people were saying both in the China and the Philippines, it feels like they learn basketball watching Kobe Bryant and figured that that was the only way that everybody could play. Right. And if you have a team full of Kobe's, that's actually not good. Back to the 10 S's, Andrew, I also believe that Chinese are lacking soulfulness and genuine spirit when they play the game because they sort of like in the academies, Andrew, they're just looking for like femur bones and stuff like that, like tall players, not necessarily people who love the game and want to do film work and have that passion for getting one percent better every day. Yeah, I would say this has been an aspect under a lot of scrutiny for a lot of people saying like, hey, you're not raising athletes to actually love the game and you have to love the game to be extremely good at it. Right. Like even if physically China and Japan obviously are no different. If the people in China don't have the love for the game, they won't produce as good of players. And then the players won't play together as well. Yeah. You're saying if all the players who actually love the game are under are playing in kings of the underdog or something like that. Right, right, right. Seriousness and scrutiny. They probably have that, to be honest. And they're probably going to be under a lot more scrutiny. Now, as far as the Philippines goes, Andrew, a lot of people are saying the state sponsored systems, that's actually the weak point. Whereas China is like pouring all the money in. They were saying the Philippines, they just don't have enough money or structures. Right, right, right. I do think that for sure the Philippines has the soulfulness and genuine spirit, though. Interesting. But I do not think maybe that Andrew, as far as the PBA goes, they have the seriousness or studious scrutiny because they allowed Manny Pacquiao to play a few games as a pro basketball player. Right. Which is kind of an unserious thing to do. Right. It's goofy. Andrew, anyway, there was just a lot of talk. How much do you think realistically like a huge loss in something that you love and you focus on for both China and the Philippines? Whereas Japan, they don't even really love basketball there, but they're super good at it. What does it mean? What how does it reflect on a country systems? Well, again, like I think when you think about how organized the country is, how good they are at getting things done, even if like a country realizes that something is an issue and they want to do something about it, but they have a very messy way of like or like no organization, some sort of broken systems to fix the system. Exactly. Exactly. And in China, China, that thing definitely does kind of shock me. I'm like a little confounded because I'm like, dang, China did have a lot of good players at a time and they did have a good team. They put a lot of money into it. But where did it all go? It must be something like physically. I think that there's Chinese players that can definitely be in the NBA. But for some reason, that skill and desire to be like good shooters and good passers and team players and play good defense, which are all the things that you need to play in the NBA if you're not a super, super star. Yeah, essentially, like, I don't know, those people just don't have it. Those guys just don't have it. It's kind of like and I shout out to Yijian Lian because he's actually like from the same like hometown as our grandfather. But like, you know, I felt like he always had the talent to be in the NBA. They called him the Chinese Kevin Garnett, and he just retired from basketball. But like he always kind of suffered from some lack of fire or lack of actually schematic five on five IQ. Yeah. And I think it just kind of it's saddening to see. It's not that I'm sad for Team China itself, because I guess I mean, it would be cool for Team China to do better. But I think it says to me, it speaks more about like the teamwork amongst some Chinese guys. And I'm like, dang, like Chinese guys can't figure it out. I'm not saying all Chinese teams are bad, but like I'm just saying. I think it does. It's symbolic of the culture. Is it a little emperor syndrome? Is it a little authoritarian government? Nobody can make decisions. It's it's as much as we always say, like China is a collectivist society. I think people always throw that word around. It's like there's a certain generation that seems very individualistic and that doesn't help you in basketball, for sure. Yeah. And Japan obviously has a higher GDP, better living standard. You know, maybe people have bigger families. More coaching systems from a young age, maybe in certain aspects of Japan. It almost feels like kind of America when it comes to sports systems, right? Yeah, it almost feels like they're more focused on sports than anything right now. Yeah. So I don't know. And as far as the Philippines go, Andrew, I really love their soulfulness. I do think that obviously they're really struggling to get it together on an infrastructure level. And that's why all the great players like the guy, the most bounciest guy in Asia, Renz, he's a Filipino who plays in KBL, which is the Korean League. Or there's a lot of players playing in Japan, too. Right, right, right. But I think that's if the Philippines can't sustain the top talent, then a good talent is going to go elsewhere to play. And at least they can come back for the national team. At least they can come back for the national team. Yeah. Anyway, guys, let us know what you think in the comments section below. Like you said, you know, we follow basketball pretty closely. I think it is unfortunate that Serbia and Slovenia are probably not going to make the Paris cut, but that's just the way they're organizing the Olympics this year to get more representation from Africa and from Asia. So let us know what you guys think in the comments section below. Shout out to Japan. Until next time, we're the Hot Pop Boys. We out. Peace.