Early in his career, Geoffrey Katsuhisa had the ideal mentor.

Longtime NBA bench boss Bob Hill gave Katsuhisa invaluable advice and showed him the ins and outs of leading a pro basketball team. This occurred in the 2010-11 bj-league season, when Hill served as the now-defunct Tokyo Apache¡¯s head coach and Katsuhisa worked as team manager and Hill¡¯s translator.

Looking back on that experience years later, Katsuhisa, now 36, recognizes how significant it was to observe Hill on a daily basis, putting in the work to get his team prepared for its next practice, its next game, its next timeout.