When the Washington Wizards decided to select Rui Hachimura with their 9th pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, Hachimura became the first Japanese player ever taken in the first round.
Ever since, Rui has become a global ambassador of the game. This status has obviously led to him becoming a bigger celebritiy than most young players.
This past January, Hachimura was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for veteran guard Kendrick Nunn and three second-round picks.
While the Japanese forward had some great games here and there for the Lakers, his performance in Game 1 of their first round playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies was by far his best game for his new team and made him one of the most talked about players of the opening weekend of the 2023 NBA Playoffs.
Rui scored 29 points in an impressive showing off the bench that included a great dunk.
Speaking of dunks, after the game, we found out that Hachimura loves to troll Anthony Davis who roasts the forward for his poor dunking package.
Davis revealed that Hachimura carries a video of him dunking on Davis around that he shows Austin Reaves all the time.
“He had a great [dunking package tonight]. We always mess with Rui. He has this clip saved on his phone of him dunking on me when he was in Washington and he shows Austin all the time.
It was an offensive foul. He elbowed me in the face. They didn’t call it though. We gave him a hard time about it, like, ‘Your dunking package is not elite. You just do regular dunks.’
He told us yesterday, he said ‘Watch I’m going to dunk on somebody this series.’ And it happened in Game 1 on guy who is a candidate for the Defensive Player of the Year. It was cool to watch.”
“Had a little stinger where my arm went completely numb. It was numb. … I couldn’t move it.” Anthony Davis on his shoulder injury, his defensive performance and the #Lakers team win. pic.twitter.com/2zu1INeQYO
— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) April 17, 2023
Taking a look back to the mentioned dunk, one has to agree that Davis might be right when he called it an offensive foul. It’s a pretty funny story either way.