The model assumes a specialist who works with four or five players individually, reports to the head coach, and has no game-day authority. Japanese clubs had no such position, and — more decisively — no salary band for one.
"Everybody agreed the method was good," Tanabe says. "Nobody disagreed once. It failed anyway."
What actually broke
Clubs assigned the development work to existing assistants who already had bench responsibilities. When the schedule compressed, the individual sessions were the first thing cut — not because anyone decided to cut them, but because they were the only item on the list with no fixture attached.
"A thing that belongs to everybody belongs to nobody. It is the oldest lesson in any organisation and we relearned it with a basketball."
The second attempt
The role was created formally, with a contract that explicitly excludes bench duties. Development minutes tripled in a season.
The clause that made it work is the one that sounds like a demotion: no game-day authority. Tanabe insisted on it.
"If he is on the bench on Saturday, then on Wednesday he is thinking about Saturday. You cannot do this work while you are also trying to win a game in four days."
Exporting the lesson, not the method
The league is now sending the variant to two neighbouring markets, and Tanabe travels with it — but what he presents first is an organisational chart, not a training syllabus.
"They are always disappointed. They wanted the drills."
He has become, slightly against his will, the person the region calls when an imported system is not taking. The diagnosis is almost always the same.
"Somebody bought a method and put it on top of the structure they already had. The method is fine. Look at who is allowed to say no to the head coach."