The first non-white NBA player, Wat ‘Kilowatt’ Misaka still beaming at 88

Basketball legend Wataru “Wat” Misaka turned 88 last month, and he still wakes up every weekday at 5:30 a.m. to work as an electrical engineer in Utah, 35 miles outside of Ogden, where he was born. “Clean living and green tea,” he gives as the reasons for his longevity.

It turns out Misaka, who considers himself an “old, stick-in-the-mud country boy,” has only spent about three of those 88 years outside of his native Utah. In the mid-1940s, he took two years off from playing at the University of Utah to serve in the U.S. Army. The remaining time, Misaka was in New York as a member of the Knicks. But he wasn’t just another name on the roster.

Misaka is Japanese-American, and when he was drafted in 1947 — after helping lead the Utes to the 1944 NCAA and 1947 NIT championships — he became not only the first Asian to enter the NBA (then called the Basketball Association of America), but the first non-white player in the league. He came before Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper and Sweetwater Clifton broke the color barrier for black players.

The first year of the draft was 1947, and Misaka didn’t even realize there was one before he heard he was going to New York, where he…

via ‘Kilowatt’ Misaka still beaming at 88 – Knicks Blog – ESPN New York.