If anything, Wednesday afternoon's Chiba Jets-Levanga Hokkaido contest was a small step forward for Japanese basketball.
After all, it represented the first Japan Basketball Association-sanctioned game between a bj-league club (the expansion Jets) and the old-guard, established JBL (Levanga). That it took place during the All-Japan National Championship, aka the 87th Emperor's Cup, at Yoyogi National Gymnasium No. 2 gave it the spotlight it deserved.
The final score — Hokkaido 97, Chiba 59 — was no surprise. The fans, though, were the clear winner, getting to see this mix of old school and the upstart bj-league, now in its seventh season with 19 teams and an 2011 NBA Draft pick collecting a paycheck from the Golden State Warriors this season (Jeremy Tyler, formerly of the defunct Tokyo Apache).