From Henderson to 桜木: A look back at JR Sakuragi in the Asia Cup

Tokyo (Japan) - In the Asia basketball scene, “Milton Henderson Jr.” might not ring as much of a bell as “JR Sakuragi”, despite being the name of the same individual person. This shows how much of an impact “Milton” has had as a member of the Japan national team, after gaining his Japanese citizenship and changing his name in 2007. Let’s take a look back at Sakuragi’s Asia Cup career with Japan!

Origin Story

Before we get to his Asia Cup debut, let’s take a brief walkthrough of how he got there. JR had first played in Japan back in 2001 with Mikawa SeaHorses and starred in the league for multiple years. After a couple of successful seasons leading his club to consecutive titles, there was growing interest for him to get Japanese citizenship for him to able to help out with the national team.

After going through a grueling process which included learning to write and read Japanese, JR finally became a naturalized Japanese citizen in 2007. He even took a Japanese name to boost his odds at success. The name he took – Sakuragi – turned out to be the same name of the main character of a well-known basketball manga, Slam Dunk. However, JR insists that it was merely a coincidence and that he only took the name for the meaning; Sakuragi is translated to cherry blossom, a tree that is of high significance in Japanese culture which symbolizes fragility and the beauty of life.

So from 2007 onwards, JR Henderson was now JR Sakuragi and he was ready to be a part of the Japan national team.

Tokushima Debut

Japan had high expectations for their national team at the 2007 FIBA Asia Cup, where they served as hosts in Tokushima. They were aiming at a chance to make the 2008 Beijing Olympics and JR was going to be a huge part of making that happen.

They fell short of their goal, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort from their players, especially Sakuragi.

In his second game, JR put in 9 points and 9 rebounds to help Japan beat Lebanon who would eventually go on to their second straight FIBA Asia Cup finals. 3 days later, JR recorded 17 points and 17 rebounds (single-game high by all players that year) in a loss to 3^rd-placed Korea. The 2.03M (6’8”) big man went off again for 17 points in the next day against Jordan, this time resulting in a 71-68 win for Japan.

Sakuragi’s first run with Japan saw him average 11.9 points and 7.1 rebounds (8^th) per game while also shooting 60.7 percent from the field.

Rebound King

It’s a happy coincidence that the Slam Dunk manga character, Hanamiji Sakuragi, was a tenacious rebounder just as JR Sakuragi at the FIBA Asia Cup in 2013.

Of the 6 games where JR played in significant minutes, he recorded double-digits in rebounds for all but one game (in which he grabbed 8). This resulted in an average of 9.4 rebounds per game which was 2^nd most among all player in the tournament that year.

Sakuragi was already 36 years of age at that point, but he was still able to average 9.6 points per game to go with his rebounds that year. Now at 43, Sakuragi is still playing with the same club in Japan and putting up strong numbers (12.8 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 5.1 assists per game).

There is no doubt that he will go down as one of the best in Japanese basketball history.

FIBA