Who was the first Asian player to land in the NBA? I believe that the answer of the vast majority of fans is Wang Zhizhi. However, the first Asian player to land in the NBA is not a Chinese player, but a Japanese Mikasa.
At that time, it was still the ancient era of the NBA, not called the NBA, but called baa. As a Japanese-American, Misaka was selected by the Knicks at the 1947 draft, becoming the first Asian-American player to land in the BAA. 3.70m tall, Misaka played as a defender on the field, but his BA career was dismal, playing three games and scoring a total of 7 points before being cut by the Knicks. The first Asian face to appear in the NBA, but his career is so short.
In fact, Mitsusaka was already famous in college, leading the University of Utah to the 1944 NCAA Championship and the 1947 Nit Championship, but these did not help him gain a foothold in the NBA. Although he failed to play his own in this league, Mikasa has become the first person in the history of modern basketball in the United States to break through the barriers of skin color, because three years after he was selected, the NBA only appeared the first black player. That is to say, the time of the emergence of yellow people in the NBA is three years earlier than the time of black people!
Although it did not make a name for itself in the NBA, this did not affect Mikasa's status in Utah. In 1999, at the age of 76, Mihan was inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame. After Misaka, it wasn't until 2004, 57 years later, that the NBA reappeared with a Japanese face, his name was Isamu Taku, and like Misaka, his NBA scored only 7 points!