After leading the Shinshu Brave Warriors to the playoffs for the first time in franchise history, head coach Ryuji Kawai will return to the sideline for the bj-league's 2014-15 season, the Eastern Conference club announced on Thursday.

Kawai guided the Nagano Prefecture-based Warriors to a 33-19 regular-season record, including 20-6 at home, in his first campaign with the team.

"Thanks sincerely to the team for giving me a chance," Kawai said in a statement issued by Shinshu.

The 38-year-old Kawai has been a basketball coach since 1999, first working for the OSG Phoenix, then a JBL2 team, as an assistant. Through the team's JBL years, Kawai served as an assistant under bench boss Kazuo Nakamura. When the Phoenix joined the bj-league in 2008, Kawai continued as Nakamura's understudy, including during the team's two championship-winning campaigns, 2009-10 and 2010-11.

When Nakamura stepped down in 2011 to become the Akita Northern Happinets coach, Kawai was promoted to Hamamatsu sideline supervisor and remained in that post until he was axed on Feb. 28, 2013, with a 60-30 record in regular-season games and a championship runnerup finish in his only full season at the helm.

Recent report on ... Robert Swift: The former NBA and Tokyo Apache center was the subject of a lengthy feature in The Seattle Times on Sunday.

Ex-Apache head coach Bob Hill and assistant coach Casey Hill, Bob's son, along with former Tokyo big man Jeremy Tyler, who played for the New York Knicks this season, were quoted in the piece.

Here's the link to the story: seattletimes.com/html/sports/2023691379_robertswift18xml.html