It shouldn't be a big shock that the Niigata Albirex BB have made a sizzling start under fiery bench boss Kazuo Nakamura, whose alleged retirement lasted one season.
Nakamura, who turns 75 next month, has transformed the East-leading Albirex (9-1) into the league's highest-scoring team (87.7 points per game). They have walloped their foes by 226 points to date.
From 2008-11, Nakamura's Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix team went 36-16, 41-11, 40-6 in the regular season in succession and captured back-to-back titles in the last two years. His Akita Northern Happinets squad had more mixed success, going 28-24 in 2011-12 in his first campaign at the helm of his hometown team, 26-26 in 2012-13 and 40-12 and a championship runnerup finish in 2013-14, a feat matched by Nakamura's successor, Makoto Hasegawa last spring. (Nakamura took his team to the playoffs in all six of those seasons.)