TPOS Podcast Episode 11 – Ed Odeven (“The American expert on Japanese Basketball”)

In this episode we learn about basketball in Japan from Ed Odeven, who is the sports editor at japan-forward.com and the author of the book, Going 15 Rounds with Jerry Izenberg, which is a great collection of writings about one of the best sports columnists of all time. Previously Ed worked for the Arizona Daily Sun and The Japan Times, and he regularly contributes to English language publications all over the world. One of his most recent stories was about Rui Hachimura, the superstar Japanese basketball player who plays for the NBA’s Washington Wizards and whose rise to stardom has put basketball on the Japanese map. In fact, Ed has catalogued basketball’s rise to national prominence in Japan for the last fifteen years, so it was my great pleasure to sit down with him recently to learn about his love of sports and sports writing, and about Japan’s national team performances in basketball at the recent Olympic Games.