is an American-Japanese professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player.

Biography

Raised in

Bakersfield, California Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...

, Sakuragi played

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

(UCLA), and was a member of the Bruins' national championship team in 1994–95. He was able to play all five positions. On the NCAA championship team in his freshman year, Sakuragi was named the team's most valuable freshman along with

Toby Bailey John Garfield "Toby" Bailey (born November 19, 1975) is an American former professional basketball player. He is currently a sports agent. College career Bailey played four years of college basketball at UCLA, being part of the Bruins squad th ...

. He was named to the All-Pac-10 first team during his sophomore and senior seasons, and was also named the Bruins' co-most valuable player both years as well. He averaged 14.2 points per game in his four-year career at the school. He was selected by the Vancouver Grizzlies in the 2nd round (56th pick) of the

1998 NBA Draft The 1998 NBA draft took place on June 24, 1998, at General Motors Place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This draft helped turn around four struggling franchises: the Dallas Mavericks, the Sacramento Kings, the Boston Celtics, and the Tor ...

where he played one season.Kaz Nagatsuka
Former UCLA player gets Japanese citizenship, spot on national hoops team
''The Japan Times'', July 17, 2007. Sakuragi played the next two years for teams in Las Vegas and France and summer-league teams in Puerto Rico and the Philippines. In 2001, he moved to Japan to play for the

Aisin Seahorses Seahorses Mikawa is a Japanese professional basketball team located in Kariya and sponsored by Aisin. The team was founded in 1947. The team played in the National Basketball League. In July 2015 it was announced that the team will compete in ...

of the

JBL Super League The JBL Super League was a professional basketball league in Japan. It started operations in 2001 and was disbanded in 2007, with the foundation of the Japan Basketball League. History The first season of the JBL Super League was played in 20 ...

, averaging 21.5 points and 11.6 rebounds per game in 2006. Sakuragi's application to become a

naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

Japanese citizen cleared on July 2, 2007, and he changed his name from J. R. Henderson to J. R. Sakuragi. He chose his new name for two reasons: firstly, he thought a Japanese name would speed up the naturalization, and secondly for the Japanese

sakura A cherry blossom, also known as Japanese cherry or sakura, is a flower of many trees of Prunus, genus ''Prunus'' or Prunus subg. Cerasus, ''Prunus'' subg. ''Cerasus''. They are common species in East Asia, including China, Korea and especia ...

cherry blossoms. It also corresponded to the name of

Hanamichi Sakuragi The manga and anime series ''Slam Dunk (manga), Slam Dunk'' features a cast of fictional characters created by Takehiko Inoue. The series takes place in Japan, with the main characters being high school basketball players from Kanagawa Prefectur ...

, the protagonist of the popular basketball manga ''

Slam Dunk A slam dunk, also simply known as dunk, is a type of basketball shot that is performed when a player jumps in the air, controls the ball above the horizontal plane of the rim, and scores by shoving the ball directly through the basket with one ...

''.Former Bruin is now Japan’s J.R. Sakuragi
''Los Angeles Times'', January 21, 2008. Sakuragi played for the Japan national team as they competed in the

2007 FIBA Asia Championship The 2007 FIBA Asia Championship for Men was the qualifying tournament for FIBA Asia at the men's basketball tournament at the 2008 Summer Olympics at Beijing. The tournament was held in Tokushima, Japan from July 28 to August 5, 2007. Particip ...

, a qualifier for the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...

.Jerry Crowe
Former Bruin finds security in his adopted homeland
''Los Angeles Times'', July 24, 2007. To comply with Japanese naturalization requirements, Sakuragi taught himself to read, speak and write Japanese at a "rudimentary level". He intended to stay in Japan without intention of returning to live in the U.S.

References

External links

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J. R. Sakuragi Basketball Player Profile, stats, biography, career
at

Asia-Basket.com Eurobasket.com also commonly referred to as "Eurobasket News", is a basketball-centered website that provide coverages of every professional and semi-professional leagues around the world. Although primarily focusing on European basketball, th ...

*
"SeaHorses veteran J.R. Sakuragi announces retirement"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sakuragi, J. R. 1976 births Living people American expatriate basketball people in Canada American expatriate basketball people in France American expatriate basketball people in Japan American expatriate basketball people in Venezuela American men's basketball players Basketball players from Bakersfield, California Caciques de Humacao players Japanese men's basketball players Japanese people of African-American descent Las Vegas Silver Bandits players Marinos B.B.C. players Naturalized citizens of Japan Paris Racing Basket players Power forwards (basketball) SeaHorses Mikawa players UCLA Bruins men's basketball players Vancouver Grizzlies draft picks Vancouver Grizzlies players American expatriate basketball people in the Philippines Philippine Basketball Association imports TNT Tropang Giga players