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“I got real lucky,� Nakagawa says.

Maybe that’s true. But luck may not fully explain how Nakagawa went from being Monson’s student manager to a full-time Gonzaga staffer under Few and now a full-time assistant for Lloyd’s Arizona Wildcats.

Nor does luck fully explain why the Japanese Basketball Association hired him for temporary work two years in a row, in 2017 and 2018, and why that country’s basketball federation put him on its staff for the FIBA U19 World Cup in 2021.

And, finally, it doesn’t really explain why Uganda, of all places, also called this year, putting Nakagawa on the coaching staff for its senior national team for the FIBA AfroBasket tournament in August.

That latest excursion maybe had something to do with luck, since Nakagawa actually met Uganda assistant (and Portland Trail Blazers assistant GM) Mike Schmitz during a Long Beach State camp over a decade ago, when Nakagawa was a manager for the Beach and Schmitz was working as an NBA draft analyst.

Nakagawa was then a senior at Long Beach State in charge of running summer camps, while Schmitz was one of the camp coaches. The two kept in touch as their careers evolved, with Schmitz working for a G League team, ESPN and Draft Express.

“This is a crazy story,� Nakagawa says of their connection. “I just got pretty lucky.�

But that’s only part of that story, too. Schmitz, a UA grad who had long worked with Uganda head coach and Washington State assistant George Galanopoulos, recommended adding Nakagawa to the Uganda staff based on what he had seen for years.

“I have always been impressed with his basketball IQ, work ethic, video expertise and ability to get on the floor with the guys,� Schmitz said through a Trail Blazers spokesman. “With a Swiss Army knife skillset and as selfless as he is, he was a no brainer for us to bring along.�

So two weeks into Arizona’s summertime training camp, Nakagawa packed his bags for Johannesburg, South Africa, where he joined Galanopolous, Schmitz and two other assistants from Uganda to work with a bunch of Ugandan pros for a 10-day training camp that preceded the mid-August event.

“They’re pretty much the OGs, the foundation of this whole thing,� Nakagawa said of the Uganda native assistants. “They helped create the professional league there and it’s growing. They’re just great people. They’re very humble and they’re down to do anything to help. There’s no ego. It was a great experience getting to know them and working with them.�

While Uganda went 0-3 in AfroBasket, Uganda celebrated the fact that it qualified for the event in what is an emerging sport in its country, where sports such as soccer, track and field and even cricket are arguably more popular.

“Just getting to AfroBasket for Uganda basketball is a huge accomplishment,� Nakagawa said. “Not every country gets to go to this tournament.�

Nakagawa compared AfroBasket’s intensity to the NCAA Tournament, saying it was so demanding that he didn’t have time to experience any of the local culture. But at least he had a chance to breathe the outside air.

That wasn’t the case during Nakagawa’s previous FIBA experience, when he joined the Japan staff at the 2021 FIBA U19 World Cup in Latvia, during a summer when COVID restrictions could still be stifling.

“We weren’t even allowed to go outside the hotel,� Nakagawa said. “Technically that was my first trip to Europe, but I don’t count it because we didn’t get to do anything. They had tight security. They had police all over the place. If you stepped out those doors of the hotel, you were risking pretty much the whole team. But it was a great experience.�

That’s because the basketball was entertaining and, for Nakagawa, fitting. He had followed Lloyd to join the Arizona staff in April 2021, and the U19 event that year included three Arizona players: Azoulas Tubelis of Lithuania, Oumar Ballo of Mali and Benn Mathurin of Canada.

There were also a couple of other pretty famous guys playing, too.

“The championship game of that one was Chet Holmgren (of Team USA) against Victor (Wembanyama of France) and I got to go to that,� Nakagawa said. “That was crazy.�

Nakagawa and Japan faced all three UA players during the U19 event, with Mathurin even dropping 30 points on the winless Japanese in Canada’s 100-75 win, while UA associate head coach Jack Murphy was on hand to watch the Wildcats and to recruit others.

Nakagawa and Ballo had followed Lloyd from Spokane, while Murphy was being held over from Sean Miller’s final UA staff and thus already knew Tubelis and Mathurin well.

While Japan went 0-7 against the stiff U19 competition, Nakagawa said the experience gave him his first taste of being an assistant coach.

While he has focused on scouting, video work, on-court instruction and player development at Arizona, Nakagawa has also gained head coaching experience in the Red-Blue Showcase, an assignment that ranges from mostly serious to, for two minutes this year, sort of goofy.

That is, Nakagawa was asked to work in “Rocky Gronkstone� into the Blue team’s second-half lineup, and he actually drew up a play for what was, in reality, former UA and NFL football star Rob Gronkowski.

Nakagawa says it failed.

“It was my bad coaching and it didn’t work,� Nakagawa said. “It was just a high ball screen and (he would) pop in. But they switched it (defensively) so nothing happened. I didn’t put him in the right situation.�

Maybe. When pressed, Nakagawa admitted Gronkowski actually got off a decent shot despite being guarded, a shot that “was straight on� and looked good.

So it maybe wasn’t all the coach’s fault. Nor, maybe, was it that the Blue team wound up losing when the normally steady Jaden Bradley turned the ball over on the scrimmage’s final possession.

“We beat ourselves,� Nakagawa said. “We need to get better.�

A year earlier, Nakagawa experienced a similar frustration: He was in charge of the Blue team that lost 47-44 after Red guard Caleb Love hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 2:55 left that the Blue could not answer.

By now, you may suspect what that means.

“This was my second time at it and I’m 0-2,� Nakagawa said. “So I might not make it next year.�

With that, Nakagawa chuckled. That’s probably not true, either.