New author foreword: It's been a few years since I have had the chance to revisit this story. Writing is just a hobby, and one which is hard to do when your chosen career leaves you too tired at times to do more than work and spend time with your family whenever possible. However, choosing to change the way that I work has given me the chance to catch up on things, and this story was one thing I wanted to go back to. I have always had big plans for what I could do as a follow up to the already written story of Slam Dunk, and with some free time, I hope to continue the story the way I had originally planned. First, I'll clean up somethings in the original chapters, and then begin to add new material as time allows. Let's see where this story takes us ….
Previous foreword: An updated story from the Slam Dunk universe, from the perspective of its main character. After writing the first 4 chapters, I've decided to go more in-depth into each character's journey to the NBA, using flashbacks interspersed with "today's" story. Chapters 1-3 are about the "present," and then Chapter 4 begins the flashbacks with the story of Sendoh. Enjoy!
Sakuragi looked at the basket, his dreams of an everlasting legacy in the NBA hanging by a thread. The Heat were down by 1, with 1 second left, and it was up to him to sink the two free throws he had been given after a hard foul from Bryant. It had been a long road which he had traveled to this point in his life, one with a lot of ups and downs, and at different points he had often questioned whether he could make it to the pinnacle of basketball. So close …
"An NBA champion!" Sakuragi thought to himself, as he spun the ball in his hands at the free-throw line. "Who would have thought it?"
As he looked towards the bench, he saw the rest of the Miami Heat, old-timers like James, Wade and Bosh, and wondered what would have happened if David Stern hadn't put in place the World Basketball League in 2003, just before he stepped down as NBA commissioner. Would he have still made it to the NBA? Would the dream of basketball dominance have died on the home floor of Shohoku, like he thought it would after his final year as captain of the team? Taking over from Miyagi as captain had been hard, so hard that all of the work that had come before seemed easy by comparison. Still, he had persevered.
He thought of Miyagi, who had taught him the art of the pass. Of Mitsui, who had taught him never to doubt himself. Of Rukawa, the three-time MVP in San Antonio, dubbed "Dr. R" by the American media, who had become a friendly rival these last few years, and the godfather of his young daughter. Of Gori, the calculating defender who had become, in real-life, a calculating physicist. Of Haruko, who first showed him the joy of basketball.
Sakuragi shot the ball, and it went in with a swish. Tied at 74 apiece, with the players on the Lakers beginning to get restless for the rebound they thought might be coming.
Sakuragi looked at the crowd, and thought back to the endless games in front of near-empty arenas in the early years of the WBL, of how it took all of Rukawa's genius with the basketball to entice young fans across Asia to support the Nippon Roar in its early years, along with Anzai-sensei's gift with strategy, to guide the Roar to its three-peat. He remembered being disheartened to learn that Rukawa, the "Master of Offense," had been signed by San Antonio before he had had a chance to entice a team to sign him, the "Czar of Defense," but how he had subsequently become so much more after years of tutelage by his brother-in-law, Akagi, and his other old Shohoku teammates, during friendly practice games with them both as members of the Roar as well as when they visited each other's home cities during the season. Then, the euphoria after his business managers, Kogure and Youhei, landed him a contract with the Heat, and the chance to build a winner in Pat Riley's system.
Sakuragi knew that he had had to put up with a lot of push-back from American fans in his first few years in the NBA, saying that Asians only knew how to pass … bad memories of Linsanity, no doubt. But, he and Rukawa had changed those perceptions, one as a scorer, setting offensive records long thought untouchable by anyone other than Wilt Chamberlain, and one as a top-notch scoring defender, the best since Rodman and Pippen. It took years, but now he had the chance to do what he and Rukawa had only dreamed of … lead an NBA team to the championship!
A final glance at the hoop, and Sakuragi knew what he had to do. As he shot the ball, and the other players on the court began to move in readiness for a possible rebound, he looked at the hoop, smiled, set his feet, and leaped from the free throw line towards the backboard. He knew he had shot it long, and he also knew where that ball was going to go. As Sakuragi continued elevating in his leap, rising towards the rafters, the crowd began rising to its feet. With a roar of triumph, he reached out, snagged the ball as it bounced off the back of the hoop, and began to bring the ball down through the hoop in a tomahawk jam.
Later that night, at home with Haruko, his daughter asked him what he had been yelling when he jammed the ball through the hoop and won the game for the Heat, and the championship to go with it. Sakuragi remarked that he couldn't remember, it was just a spur of the moment yell, and sent young Ayako to bed with a kiss on her forehead. Haruko knew better, though, and asked her husband the same question.
At first, Sakuragi also didn't answer his wife of so many years, but when asked by her a second time, he said that he had honored his old team and teammates, yelling out what he had believed then, after the game with the combined Ryonan-Shoyo team, and what he now believed about the next generation of Japanese basketball as a whole: "We are strong!"
Haruko chuckled, and rested her head on Sakuragi's shoulder. "I'm so proud of you, dear," she murmured. Sakuragi sighed with contentment, dreaming of a well-deserved few days off with his family, and then the work beginning again: the travel, the injuries, the endless practices. He wouldn't have it any other way.
