San En Neo Phoenix
Wikipedia - San-en NeoPhoenix
San-en NeoPhoenix (三遠ネオフェニックス, San'en Neofenikkusu) is a B.League professional basketball team, based in the eastern Mikawa and Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture region of central Japan.
The team was founded in 1965 as the company team of the OSG Corporation, a Toyokawa-based machine parts manufacturer. It remained a local team in Aichi prefecture until 1995, when it first participated in the All-Japan Professional Basketball Championships. It joined the Japan Basketball League (JBL) in 1999, winning the Second Division championship in 2000. “Higashimikawa” was added to the team name in 2007, when its home stadium was moved to Toyohashi. It ended the 2007 season in third place.
From 2008, the Higashimikawa Phoenix joined the new bj league, and the following year, “Hamamatsu” was added to the team name to emphasize the compound franchise among Toyohashi, Hamamatsu, and the surrounding districts and the team was legally registered as an independent corporation under the name of “Phoenix Communications”. The team signed the noted Chinese basketball star, Sun Mingming, in 2008.
In July 2015 it was announced that the team will compete in the first division of the new Japan Professional Basketball League, which will commence from October 2016. Accordingly it was changed the club name to "SAN-EN NEOPHOENIX", and transferred to the home arena to Toyohashi.
Tým byl založen v roce 2000 a původně se jmenoval Matsue Shimane Susanoo Magic. V roce 2006 se tým přestěhoval do svého současného domova v Matsue a o dva roky později změnil svůj název na San En Neo Phoenix.
Neo Phoenix dosud nikdy nevyhrál mistrovství NBL, ale v letech 2018 a 2019 dvakrát skončil na druhém místě. Tým má silnou fanouškovskou základnu v prefektuře Shimane a je známý svou dynamickou a útočnou hrou.
Současným trenérem Neo Phoenix je Kentaro Sugiura a v týmu hrají přední hráči jako Ryan Rossiter, Makoto Hiejima a Naoto Tsuji.