By James Brown
29/08/2023, 12:08 AM
The FIBA World Cup has started and the teams are giving their best to take the gold home, one of the National squads that had two powerful NBA players was Japan, until the moment in the offseason when Rui Hachimura decided to step down from it.
Hachimura was about to become a free agent and he wanted to put up some work ahead of the next NBA season, because of that, he chose to step down from this FIBA World Cup to represent Japan.
Still, Rui loves his country and his teammates, and after Japan got a big win against Finland, the Lakers wing reacted to the massive FIBA World Cup upset to Finland.
Japan faced an NBA All-Star, Lauri Markkanen from Team Finland, and upset him by getting the win. Hachimura wrote on Twitter: "Great win today by @Japanbasketball! Let's keep it going and support them as they take on Australia."
Despite the Lakers star's absence, Japan was led by Joshua Hawkinson in scoring with 28 points on 62.5& field goal shooting. Yuki Kawamura also followed suit by knocking down 25 points. Yuta Watanabe, the other NBA Japanese player struggled from all three levels of scoring but the team still managed to get the win.
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