Knicks Summer League Coach Dice Yoshimoto Reveals NBA Journey
The New York Knicks' Summer League team (2-2) is hoping to finish its five-game season with a positive record against the Denver Nuggets on Saturday night (8:30 p.m. ET, NBA TV).
Shooting guard Charlie Brown Jr. has been the star on the floor as he leads the team in point, rebound, and steal averages among those who have partaken in at least two games.
Coach Dice Yoshimoto has been pulling all the strings from courtside. Yoshimoto is a Knicks assistant during the regular season and has run the Summer League team for the last three years. Last year's group posted a runner-up finish in Las Vegas with future starting five staple Quentin Grimes leading the way.
"I was born and raised in Osaka, Japan," Yoshimoto said. "I played high school basketball in Japan, then came over and played in junior college. I quickly realized playing isn't my career, so after I got done playing, one of my college coaches asked me to stay on the staff and help the young guys out. That's how I got into coaching."
Yoshimoto's next stop on his coaching journey was working with the Ukrainian national team. His performance there drew the attention of Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau, who hired Yoshimoto to his staff and immediately mentored him about the next steps in coaching.
"One of the greatest pieces of advice that he gave me is that players will allow you to coach whether you play or didn't play," Yoshimoto said. "Gender, height, wherever you're from, doesn't matter. As long as you're sincere, confident, reliable, and trustworthy, players will allow you to coach."
Yoshimoto said that coaching in the Summer League is a very rapid process where one is expected to know everything about a hastily-assembled roster. The game strategy is on the fly a lot of the time, but Yoshimoto said it's all worth it because of the team aspect.
"I love to develop young players and players in general," Yoshimoto said. "I love the strategy part of it. It's very competitive and that's what I like, especially in the NBA (where) the players are so good and the coaches are so good."
As the Knicks Summer League season comes to a close, Yoshimoto said he just wants to continue to get better. One more opportunity awaits on Saturday, as they'll face a Denver group led by second-round pick Hunter Tyson.
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