The Complete History of Asian Players in the NBA

Image via Getty/Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE

Nationality: Japanese-American

Team(s): Knicks

Years active: 1947-1948

Career stats: 3 G, 2.3 PPG

The same year that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, Wataru Misaka (pictured right) became the first non-caucasian to play in the NBA. A staff sergeant during WWII, Misaka faced discrimination for his Japanese ethnicity during the war with Japan. After he was discharged, he finished his collegiate playing career at the University of Utah, and was selected by the Knicks in the 1947 Draft.

Misaka's run in the NBA was short lived—he was cut after scoring seven points in three games, and never receieved a full explaination as to why. Critical observers might point to his race, but Misaka thought it was for a basketball reason: The Knicks had too many guards on the roster, and coming in at 5'7" and 150 lbs, Misaka wasn't exactly a physical specimen full of long-term potential. Three years after Misaka debuted, the first black players were drafted, signed, and played in the NBA. The league would go another 40 years before the next Asian player would touch an NBA court.

Nationality: Filipino-American

Team(s): Warriors, Pacers

Years active: 1978-1980, 1981-1982

Career stats: 154 G, 4.8 PPG, 1.4 APG, 1.0 RPG

Despite debuting in 1978, Raymond Townsend remains the first and only NBA player of Filipino descent. A San Jos, Calif. kid and member of John Wooden's 1975 title-winning UCLA Bruins, this Pinoy stayed closed to home when he was drafted 22nd overall (the first Asian-American to be drafted in the 1st round) by the Warriors in 1978. He's since become an assistant coach for the Kansas men's basketball program, and was a member of the staff for the team's 2008 National Championship. Townsend was the only bearer of the Filipino NBA torch until fellow Filpino-American Erik Spoelstra started racking up rings with LeBron and Co. down in Miami.

Nationality: Japanese-American

Team(s): Nets, 76ers, Heat

Years active: 1993-2000

Career stats: 335 G, 4.6 PPG, 1.7 APG, 1.2 RPG, 1.0 SPG

Another Bay Area native, Rex Walters was born to a Japanese mother and grew up amongst San Jose's prominent Asian community. Growing up, he and his friends would joke about his "wide eyes," because Walters doesn't look Asian despite his heritage. A player for Roy Williams at Kansas, he was the first Asian-American to play in the Final Four, and was rewarded with the 16th pick in the 1993 NBA Draft.

A career 36 percent three-point shooter, Walters' silky smooth left stroke helped him carve out seven NBA seasons before moving on to college coaching. While he never recieved racical abuse because he doesn't look Asian, in an interview with Rick Quan, he claims the more pressing issue—and one that was rooted in his looks, not his true ethnicity—was whether or not he was "really making it for the Japnese community," to which he definitively responded: "I am a Japanese-American. I take great pride in that."

Nationality: Chinese

Team(s): Nuggets, Spurs, Raptors

Years active: 2001-2004

Career stats: 46 G, 3.4 PPG, 2.5 RPG

While he's techinically an "NBA Champion," and has a ring, let's not call him a real champion. The first Chinese player to taste that sweet championship confetti, Mengke Bateer was on the Spurs' 2003 roster, but didn't play during their title-winning playoff run. (That makes Adam Morrison the white Mengke Bateer). Totally devoid of any speed and agility, Bateer was known for using his immense girth on screens (he weighed in at 290 lbs.) and his clever passing ability (he once recorded six assists in a game) to impact the game in many inconsequential ways.

The only Asian player to make it to the NBA without ever being drafted, we're convinced that Bateer's intimidating Mongolian demeanor helped his cause—it's certainly helped his acting career, as he's had roles in three Chinese action movies. Still, it's worth noting that Bateer was the first modern Asian import in the NBA (Wang Zhizhi was drafted before Bateer signed, but didn't play until after Bateer made his debut), coming into league a year before Yao was drafted.

Nationality: Chinese

Team(s): Mavericks, Clippers, Heat

Years active: 2001-2005

Career stats: 137 G, 4.4 PPG, 1.7 RPG

The first NBA player to be drafted from China, Wang Zhizhi's play was unremarkable, but his diplomatic moves during his NBA career were as puzzling as they were controversial. The Mavericks picked him in the 1999 NBA Draft after receiving his Chinese citizenship papers from his agent. After two years of negotiating an arrangement with Zhizhi's Chinese club, he scored six points in eight minutes in his NBA debut against the Hawks.

After his contract expired in 2002, he refused to return to China to train with the national team, fired his agent, moved to L.A. without telling the Mavericks or Chinese officials, and indicated that he might defect to the United States. China sent two military officials to try and persuade him to return, but Zhizhi signed with the Clippers, cut ties with the national team, and remained in the United States until his NBA career ran out of gas in 2005. He's since kissed and made up with Chinese authorities, and has returned to competition with the national team.

Nationality: Chinese

Team(s): Rockets

Years active: 2002-2011

Career stats: 486 G, 19 PPG, 9.2 RPG, 1.6 APG, 1.9 BPG

For Asian athletes the world over, it doesn't get bigger than Yao—literally. The guy was 7'6", making him the NBA's third-tallest player, and the fourth tallest Chinese man on record. Figuratively, Yao brought legitimacy to Asian basketball players, and to China as an NBA-loving country. Right now, there are more NBA fans in China than there are people in the United States, and while you can't quantify Yao's direct impact, the gap he bridged between the Far East and the NBA is undeniable.

Arguably the best center of the mid-2000s (when healthy), Yao had a sweet jumper and low-post moves of a true center. He was fully healthy his first three years in the league, but only played more than 75 games once in his remaining five seasons. Injury-plagued he was, but history will remember him as a dominant center and the tipping point for the NBA's massive global expansion, making him one of the five most important players of the NBA's post-Jordan era. (LeBron, Kobe, Shaq, and Iverson round out the Top 5.)

Nationality: Japanese

Team(s): Suns

Years active: 2004-2005

Career stats: 4 G, 1.8 PPG, 0.8 APG, 1.0 RPG

The only Japanese-born player to play an NBA game, Yuta Tabuse fought long and hard for his NBA dream. He played one season for BYU-Hawaii to try to get his name floated around the American college ranks before turning pro in Japan. After a season back home, he played on the Mavericks and Nuggets' summer league teams before getting a crack with the Suns in 2005. Although he was cut three months into the regular season, the four games he played is a historical marker for Japanese basketball.

That recognition actually landed him on the Japanese cover of NBA Live 2006 even though he didn't play a single NBA game that year. Tabuse bounced around NBA summer camps and the D-League until 2008, when he returned to Japan for good. Much respect to the 5'8" 165-lbs guard for spending around seven years in the United States for a fleeting NBA moment when he could've been schooling his countrymen in the J-League.

Nationality: Korean

Team(s): Trail Blazers

Years active: 2005-2006

Career stats: 46 G, 1.5 PPG, 1.5 RPG

Ha Seung-Jin is the first Korean to play in the NBA. Ha's brightest career moment came in a 106-103 victory against the Lakers in 2005. The 34-47 Lakers threw out Chris Mihm, Brian Grant, and Jumaine Jones (we can't believe these guys used to be Kobe's teammates either) to defend against the 7'3" South Korean giant, who scored 13 points and grabbed five boards.

Nationality: Chinese

Team(s): Bucks, Nets, Wizards, Mavericks

Years active: 2007-2012

Career stats: 272 G, 7.9 PPG, 4.9 RPG

Yi Jianlian was supposed to be the Asian Dirk Nowitzk and/or the next Yao Ming. Whether it was due to injuries or a poor adjustment to the NBA style at an early age, he never channled his inside-out ability and athleticism into consistent play. The sixth overall pick of the 2007 Draft, the Bucks practically moved heaven and Earth to sign the 20-year-old. Yi was more concerned about playing in a city with a beaming Asian community than actually getting on the court, and demanded a trade before the Bucks' personal overtures and guarantees over playing time satisfied him. Before he even signed with an NBA team, Yi was viewing his NBA career as a right, not a priviledge—hardly an auspicious line of thinking. His best season came in 2009-2010, when he averaged 12 points and 7.2 boards as a starter for a 12-70 Nets squad.

Although his age has been questioned (it's alleged that his birth certificate was doctored by three years so he could play in junior competitions longer), he's still only (officially) 25, and could probably contribute to the back-end of an NBA bench somewhere. It doesn't appear that he'll be back anytime soon though—he averaged 24.6 PPG and won a CBA title last season with his hometown Guangdong Southern Tigers.

Nationality: Chinese

Team(s): Lakers

Years active: 2008-2009

Career stats: 10 G, 0.6 PPG, 0.2 APG, 0.1 SPG, 0.1 BPG

A 6'9" point guard, Sun Yue's unusual size and success in the CBA caused the Lakers to take a flyer on him with the 40th pick in the 2007 Draft. He arrived a year later to begin his career with the Lakers, but caught a bout of mononucleosis and was ruled out from August to December. Upon returning, he rode the bench all the way to a 2009 title with the Lakers, becoming the second Asian player to do nothing and win a ring. He was waived a month after the 2009 Finals, and has since returned to China.

Nationality: Taiwanese-American

Team(s): Warriors, Knicks, Rockets

Years active: 2010-Present

Career stats: 146 G, 11.5 PPG, 5.2 APG, 2.7 RPG, 1.5 SPG, 0.3 BPG

You know the story. Asian baller doesn't get recruited out of high school, goes to Harvard to play, goes undrafted, gets signed by the Warriors, ends up being waived by the Warriors and Rockets, ALMOST gets waived again—this time by the Knicks, who wanted to save $788,000 by cutting his nonguaranteed contract to sign Mike James (WHO?). Instead, he got his one shot against the Nets at MSG, scored 25 points, and rode the Linsanity wave until a knee injury/James Dolan's pigheaded nature ended his time with the Knicks. Then he signs a a four-year, $28 million deal with Houston. It's the kind of story that movies are made of.

As an Asian-American myself (if you haven't noticed, there are a lot of us now) who once had hoop dreams, Jeremy Lin's success—as average as it may be relative to the rest of the point guards in the NBA—means a lot. The first Asian-American athlete to transcend his sport, Lin's relevance will always be warranted, no matter what his Stephen A. Smith-minded detractors say.