Basketball team

Kobe

Club · Japan · B2 League

«Kobe Storks»

74 Matches

63 wins

11 losses

6560–5631 Points

+929 Difference

88.6 Average per match

Form W L L W L L

Promotion came the hard way, through the second tier rather than straight in. The Kobe Storks won the B2 League Championship in 2025–26, and the title carried them back into the B1 League for 2026–27. That earlier taste came in 2016–17, when the team, then playing as the Nishinomiya Storks under head coach Danny Yoshikawa, took the B2 crown and went up, only to be relegated the following season. The 2025–26 run, guided by Taizo Kawabe, was built to avoid a repeat of that drop.

The club has worn three names in three cities. It started in 2011 as the Hyogo Storks, entering the second division of the Japan Basketball League and winning the JBL2 championship in its second season. A move to Nishinomiya in 2015 brought the second name; a further move to Kobe in 2023 brought the current one.

Naoki Tani gave the club that continuity in human form. He retired after the 2025–26 championship season, and the Storks retired his number 9 with him, the first number the club has taken out of circulation. For the promotion push that followed his playing career, Kobe also brought in Allen Hachimura for 2025–26.

Kobe now shares the Kansai region, and the Western Conference, with the Osaka Evessa, a rivalry drawn along that geography rather than history.

Latest results

Fixtures and results

12 Oct	B League	Nagasaki A	69:85	L
10 Oct	B League	Saga Ballooners H	77:84	L
8 Oct	B League	Chiba H	94:86	W
4 Oct	B League	Hiroshima Dragonflies A	72:83	L
2 Oct	B League	Hiroshima Dragonflies A	73:96	L
27 Sep	B League	Osaka H	84:78	W

Standing

B2 League

Group stage · Western Conference

#	Team	M	W	L	Goals
1	Kobe	60	55	5	5301:4446
2	Ehime Orange Vikings	60	38	22	4977:4847
3	Kumamoto	60	36	24	4984:4660
4	Kagoshima Rebnise	60	28	32	5060:5116
5	Fukuoka Rizing Zephyr	60	25	35	4584:4754
6	Nara	60	18	42	4428:4941
7	Shizuoka	60	15	45	4341:4899