When the J. League was being set up in the early 1990s, its chairman, Saburo Kawabuchi, said that he heard a lot of pessimistic voices about its formation. But the Japan Football Association stuck with its plans and started the league.
With that experience to draw on, Kawabuchi suggested this to Japanese basketball executives who have similar opinions: Develop a Copernican revolution in their heads.
To spell it out, Kawabuchi insists that if they are content with the status quo or think making the sport grow on a much larger business scale isn't achievable, they need to toss those ideas out the window; otherwise, he said, they're not going to change anything.