Three-time Japan Basketball League MVP J.R. Sakuragi has decided to bring his long career to an end, the SeaHorses Mikawa star announced Wednesday.
The 43-year-old, who was drafted in the second round of the 1998 NBA Draft by the Vancouver Grizzlies, signed with the SeaHorses in 2001 and remained with the team through this past season, which was shortened by the COVID-19 outbreak.
“I never expected that the season would end the way it did,” Sakuragi said in a statement on the Aichi Prefecture-based club’s official website. “I never expected that a single virus would change the way we live.”