Antonio Lang is my friend.

For those of you who don't know, Antonio Lang use to play basketball at Duke in the mid 90s or so. Anyway, now he plays for a team in the Japanese Basketball League (JBL). That is him wearing the Carolina Blue.

Cutting back a few months, I became friends with a photographer here in my city who also coaches some junior high school basketball and I have been going to his practices every Monday night. The coach/photographer (who is pretty much a Japanese version of me) is also a member of the local basketball association group so when the JBL came to town he asked me if I would be interested in taking some photographs. I am sure you now what my response was.

So at the game, during warm ups, I surprised that I recognized one of the players, walked over to his area and since I stood out easily he said hello to me and we started chatting. I couldn't remember who he was, but he finally introduced himself and right away I remembered, and told him that I was Tarheel! He started laughing and told me that the fans care a lot more about the rivalry then the players do. Anyway, he had to get warmed up and said he would talk to me after the game.


Well his team lost, but he gave me his email and said if I ever get down to his area to let him know.
For those of you wondering what Japanese Pro Basketball is like... well the above picture of my friend pretty much sums it up. Each team is allowed a certain number of foreigners (I think 3) and those 3 usually play the whole game and the Japanese players pretty much rely on them. so it is kind of like the 3 v 3 or Phil Jackson's Triangle Offense.