Watch video highlights of the 2014 FIBA Under-17 World Championship in Dubai and you'll see glimpses of the future pro Rui Hachimura's immense talents. Impressive footwork, quick and agile, excellent body control and a nice mix of offensive moves were all on display, including in Japan's game against the United States on Aug. 12.

Hachimura scored 25 points against a team that featured four future NBA players: Ivan Rabb, Caleb Swanigan, Josh Jackson and Jayson Tatum. Team USA won in a landslide, 122-38. Hachimura led all players in scoring (22.6 points per game) at the 16-nation tournament.

Similarly, a year earlier, the Toyama native demonstrated that he had a real potential in basketball, his sport of choice since age 12 in junior high school.

What did he do in 2013?

Hachimura exhibited stellar all-around skills at the FIBA Asia U-16 Championship in Iran, where he posted averages of 22.8 points, 12.6 rebounds and 2.8 blocks.

Time flies. The 203-cm Hachimura developed into a college star at Gonzaga University, for which he became the first Japanese to play in the NCAA Tournament. And he's now on the verge of global recognition as the first Japanese to be chosen in the first round of the NBA Draft. The two-round, 60-player extravaganza is set for Thursday in New York.

Before the momentous news is announced, go back and watch video footage of then-No. 3 Gonzaga's 89-87 victory over top-ranked Duke at the 2018 Maui Invitational final on Nov. 21 in Hawaii. That game was absolute validation that Hachimura had arrived as a top-tier NCAA star, holding his own against Duke phenom Zion Williamson, the consensus No. 1 pick (New Orleans Pelicans) and fellow 2019 draft prospect RJ Barrett. Hachimura finished with 20 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three blocks in the Bulldogs' first-ever triumph over a No. 1-ranked team.

After the game, Zags coach Mark Few commented on Hachimura's maturation as a player, pinpointing his improved attack-the-basket mentality on offense.

"He was wanting the ball and when we got him the ball for the most part he was delivering against some high, high-level athletes and some damn good defenders around the rim," Few said.

Former ABA and NBA guard Brian Taylor, who won two championships while playing for the ABA's New York Nets during his 10-year pro career, sees a bright future for Hachimura.

"The sky's the limit for Rui," Taylor told Hoop Scoop last week. "His athleticism is exciting to watch and his ability to run the lanes and finish is impressive. Hard to believe that he moves that swiftly. Star potential, in my opinion."

Taylor played for the Kansas City Kings, Denver Nuggets and San Diego Clippers after the NBA absorbed four ABA teams, including the Nets, in 1976. He led the NBA in 3-point shots made (90) and attempted (239) in 1979-80, the first season the league instituted one of the most popular aspects of the then-disbanded ABA. Taylor said that he'd like see Hachimura focus on improving his outside shooting in order to become comfortable as a "long-range bomber." He made 15 of 36 as a junior in the 2018-19 campaign.

Forecast as lottery pick

KREM sports anchor Karthik Venkataraman, who reports on the local sports scene for the Spokane, Washington-based TV station, predicted that Hachimura is headed to the Miami Heat with the No. 13 pick.

"The Miami Heat could use someone to pick up some slack on the offensive end," Venkataraman wrote in an article posted on krem.com. "They were 26th in the league in points per game and they could use a wing player like Hachimura to help there."

If the 2019 Julius Erving Award winner is available at No. 19, he "could be a steal" for the San Antonio Spurs, @ForbesSportsMoney tweeted last week.

Jim Meehan, who covers the Gonzaga beat for The Spokesman-Review, noted last week that Hachimura is considered a lottery pick, which means a player taken with one of the first 14 picks — that is, by one of the 14 teams that failed to make the playoffs in the previous season.

"According to NBA.com's compilation of 10 mock drafts, Hachimura's stock is on the rise," Meehan wrote. "He's a lottery pick in six mocks, with four projecting him to land with Minnesota at No. 11."

In a recent article, Seattlepi.com described Hachimura as a player with "off-the-charts athleticism that should translate nicely to the next level. . . . He was perhaps college basketball's most unique scoring force not named Zion Williamson."

As a junior, Hachimura averaged 19.7 points, 6.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 0.9 steals and 0.7 blocks in 37 games. He also shot an impressive 59.1 percent from the floor.

He's come a long way, literally and figuratively. Hachimura's freshman season involved plenty of frustration, particularly because of his lack of playing time (4.6 minutes per game, while averaging 2.6 points and 1.4 rebounds. He even considered quitting the team, according to the Los Angeles Times.

His sense of duty, though, kept him from giving up.

"I just couldn't. I was playing for my country, for my family," Hachimura was quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times in March. "I had to trust the coaches."

Hachimura paid his dues and earned more playing time as a sophomore sixth man, averaging 11.6 points, 4.7 rebounds and 20.6 minutes.

Which set the stage for him to be a go-to star as a junior. He rose to the challenge, winning the West Coast Conference Player of the Year honor and earning Associated Press All America Second Team accolades. He was one of four Citizen Naismith Trophy finalists.

Future impact

University of South Carolina sports economist Mark Nagel believes Hachimura is the breakthrough star that Japanese basketball needs to elevate the sport here to the next level — broader mass appeal.

"I think it's going to be a great long-term thing for Japanese basketball," Nagel said in a recent phone interview. "He's a great player, and in a lot of ways he's the first player Japan has really had that's really, really good. Obviously, (Yuta) Tabuse played in the NBA a little bit."

How will Hachimura impact change?

"You're going to see more and more kids saying, 'I want to follow the NBA. I want to follow Hachimura. I want to play basketball.' And I think it'll create a nice cycle for Japan, maybe not exactly the same way as it happened in China, because China was already a basketball hotbed before Yao Ming was in the NBA," Nagel said. "That incentivized and hyper-attuned the whole country to what's going on in the NBA."

In two to four years from now, Nagel predicted that "every level of Japanese basketball is going to be improved in regards to interest, participation, quality of play and so forth."

He added: "I think it'll be a huge positive as we look a couple years out, more so than as we look a couple months out. In a couple months out, what's gonna be interesting is how much more NBA licensed merchandise will be sold in Japan, particularly for the team that Hachimura gets drafted by. That's where you'll see the immediate impact be felt there."

Call it the Hachimura Factor.