For This N.B.A. Rookie, Reality TV Is an Escape That Feels Like Home

Long before he began feeding his obsession and even found himself sitting next to its hosts, Rui Hachimura didn’t understand all the fuss about the Japanese reality television show “Terrace House.” His high school teammates in Japan had tried hard to get him on board.

“I was the only one who was like, ‘Nah,’” said Hachimura, a rookie forward for the Washington Wizards. “But then I started to watch it and it was like, ‘Oh, OK.’”

Soon enough, Hachimura became infatuated with “Terrace House,” which chronicles the (often humdrum) day-to-day routines of several strangers who agree to live together. After Hachimura moved to the United States in 2016 to play basketball at Gonzaga, one of his tutors figured out how to motivate him to study: Let him watch an episode after he had completed his schoolwork. For a homesick teenager, the show was bliss.

“When I’m watching the show,” Hachimura said, “I can forget everything.”

That has never been as true as it is now. Stuck at home like so many others as the coronavirus pandemic continues its spread, Hachimura, 22, has occupied himself by working out, playing video games, filming a public-service announcement for the World Health Organization and watching more “Terrace House” than even he thought was humanly possible.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/sports/basketball/terrace-house-rui-hachimura.html