The NBL announced Monday that the expansion Hiroshima Dragonflies will enter the league for the 2014-15 season with Kenichi Sako as their first coach.
There are currently 12 teams in the NBL, the renamed successor to the JBL.
A longtime JBL star guard, Sako, now 43, spent years on the Japan national team. During a playing career that began in 1993, Sako suited up for the Isuzu Motors Giga Cats and then joined the Aisin Seahorses in 2002. He retired in 2011 after leading his clubs to 13 All-Japan Championship titles and nine JBL championships.