Avi Koki Schafer was a diamond in the rough who was completely off the Japan Basketball Association radar before playing in scrimmage against the Japan U-16 national team in 2015.

When he showed up with the Tokyo Samurai for those games in October of that year, JBA officials were both impressed and caught totally off guard.

¡°So we scrimmaged and there was this 2-meter guy who was fighting like crazy inside,¡± said Torsten Loibl, who was coaching the U-16 squad at the time. ¡°He gave our big men a hard time.¡±