Thompson: The Godfather of NBA analytics is on a mission to debunk a myth

By Marcus Thompson II, The Athletic

Anwar McQueen remembers vividly when it all began. Spring of 2005. 

At the time, he was an assistant men’s basketball coach at the University of San Francisco. Jessie Evans was the head coach, but McQueen became the protégé of fellow assistant Bill Johnson. McQueen and Johnson went to De La Salle High to watch Theo Robertson, a local hoops star high on USF’s wish list. Johnson had introduced McQueen to a new software for breaking down film. It was called SportsCode. So while Johnson drove — across the Bay Bridge, through the Caldecott Tunnel — McQueen was in the passenger seat, getting his mind blown. 

“That was the moment right there,” he recalled recently.

Since McQueen had joined the Dons’ staff in 2002, all he’d known about film editing and data collection was connected to VHS tapes. Back then, video coordinators had to be wizards with the VCR, cutting the fat off of game film and splicing footage for the sake of analysis. But this software, which Johnson brought with him from Columbia — it was a game changer. Goodbye, analog, hello digital analysis. 

In those days, he and his buddy Lloyd Pierce — then an assistant with Santa Clara, now head coach of the Atlanta Hawks —  would chat about how they were going to make their breaks. McQueen would always preach the gospel of technology. And on that day in 2005, he had it on his lap. The future at his fingertips. He couldn’t pull himself away. When they arrived at De La Salle, Johnson went in to watch the game. McQueen never got out of the car. A pioneer was being inspired. 

This was the genesis of the Godfather of NBA analytics.

“He has an incredible network, deeper than anyone knows,” said James Laughlin, in his fifth season with the Warriors and in his second as the director of video operations. “Everyone who I know knows Anwar. That alone shows he’s truly the Godfather.”

McQueen has a spreadsheet at the ready. It tracks the analytics types around the league. It’s where you realize the fraternity of NBA data junkies is actually pretty small. He is tracking who is where, the progression of their careers, even who ended up with hiring power and brought someone else on.

There is Quinton Crawford, a Lakers assistant coach. He started at Pepperdine and followed with NBA stops in Sacramento, Orlando and Charlotte.

There is Sammy Gelfand, the Detroit Pistons director of basketball analytics, who started in the G League before getting a shot with the Warriors and turning that into a senior role with the Pistons.

There is Samson Kayode, who started his career doing video analysis for Morgan State, an HBCU in Baltimore, and spent time with New Mexico State, the Warriors and the Pistons before becoming assistant director of USA Basketball. 

There is Sean Sweeney, the Pistons assistant coach who started as a video coordinator at Northern Iowa before nabbing the same position with the then-New Jersey Nets. And Richard Fernando, who has risen from video coordinator of the Miami Heat to director of coaching administration for the 76ers. And Sydney Durrah, whose young career has already included video analysis for the University of Maryland, the Washington Mystics, Florida International, the Ohio State Buckeyes and currently Georgia Tech.

Robertson is high on this list. Now a player development coach for the Warriors, Robertson — the same player McQueen was going to see when got hooked — has already worked with Cal, the Lakers, the Pistons and now twice with the Warriors.

“I have seen first hand both sides of the coin,” McQueen said, “whether it be a former player or someone who has never played proving how the love of the game should not be limited to the basketball court. We need to debunk this narrative that former players don’t have the skills to navigate spreadsheets and non-players don’t have the playing experience to have a say in analytics. Ideally, we want both: analysts who can create the data that supports teams and former players who understand how to apply the data.”

McQueen’s list is 85 deep. It is diverse — men and women, people from varying backgrounds and cultures, at levels ranging from college to the NBA to the WNBA. They all, for sure, know him. Many of them were helped at the start by McQueen. When the Oklahoma City Thunder needed someone quickly for their video team, they called McQueen and he recommended Fortune Solomon, then working at Stanford. Solomon is now in season No. 4 as a player development analyst with the Thunder. McQueen pushed for Sweeney to get on with the Nets — then his recommendation helped keep Sweeney on when Jason Kidd was hired as coach in 2013.

Now, as they move up, they reach back to McQueen for new blood. Right there, that is the grand plan. The vision of the Godfather. It is also why the most important names aren’t yet on this spreadsheet.

In 2016, McQueen started T.E.A.M. with Alexis Musante, an Oakland native who played college ball at DePaul and USF before beginning a career in youth development and getting her Masters in Sport Management. The purpose of the program — Tech Exposure and Access through Mentoring — is to prepare a generation of future analytics buffs, giving underrepresented youth the skills and opportunities to chase careers in technology. The foundation of T.E.A.M. is the free 12-week training program that works on leadership, critical thinking and analytical skills via technology-centered projects. 

They teach students the same SportsCode software McQueen learned in the De La Salle parking lot. These teenagers are learning the same niche software NBA teams use, doing the same tasks video coordinators are executing for their coaches every day. SportsCode isn’t available to the public and is expensive to purchase. But McQueen’s access and connections make it available to T.E.A.M. And this summer will be the third year the program will send students to NBA Summer League in Las Vegas to break down video for teams using the software.

“Anwar has a huge heart for this mission of connecting young people with access to professional sports careers leveraging technology,” said Brandon Nicholson, the founding executive director of the Hidden Genius Project, which has a similar mission that extends outside of the sports realm but regularly partners with T.E.A.M. on projects and events.

“This goes back well beyond the inception of T.E.A.M. as he was doing a lot of this work on a one-to-one basis in meeting rooms and coffee shops long before the nonprofit had ever incorporated. He has continually put his reputation on the line to ignite careers for young people of color, and there are not many people we come across day to day who can say the same. Where we deeply coalesce is around the importance of our young people continuing to pursue their dreams and leveraging technology to get there. We too frequently tell our black boys that a sports career is unrealistic when it’s really the playing career that is improbable. Still, countless people get paid every year as a result of what happens on the court, the field, the pitch without ever playing. We do our young people a disservice when we fail to expose them to those opportunities.”

McQueen lounged at his home in downtown Oakland, waiting for Game 4 of the 2019 NBA Finals to tip off. He was watching “High Noon” on ESPN when he was prompted to sit up in his seat. Bomani Jones and Pablo Torres had a segment about a New Yorker article in which Jalen Rose went off about the analytics movement in the NBA. 

When the article dropped, McQueen’s phone blew up. Anyone who knows him understands that he devours content about basketball analytics like a kid does the milk in the bowl once the cereal is gone. Several people forwarded him the Q&A. He was nervous, but he dove in.

The last time basketball analytics was at the forefront of NBA discourse was in May 2016, media legend Michael Wilbon, a recent Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame honoree, wrote a piece for The Undefeated about how advanced analytics and African-Americans didn’t mix. Reading it felt like a Mike Tyson uppercut to the belly button. Wilbon was expressing a paradigm McQueen has been working to keep from filtering down the generational ladder.

Conversely, what Rose said was refreshing. For sure, the “analytics is a tool in the toolbox” analogy Rose used earned an inward fist-pump from McQueen because he’s used it for years. Rose’s commentary on the exclusion in the analytics community at least points in the direction of McQueen’s work. Rose highlighted the very problem McQueen is working to solve. And that’s why this segment by Jones and Torres had his undivided attention. His world was in the mainstream.

“The problem, though, is in the pipeline,” Torres said on the June 7 episode. “Who is being fed into this? … This gets to STEM education. This gets to math and science for young people of color as much as it gets to what happens in the front offices of the NBA.”

Oh, McQueen was in church now. STEM education, that’s the essence of what he does, the heart of what this dialogue is about. Jones chimed in next.

“I don’t know if it’s easy for a lot of people watching this to relate to what it is like to be a Black person in a math class that is being taught by White people, you know, being in those spaces,” Jones said. “We are consistently and constantly underestimated. The lack of Black people in high levels of STEM stuff is not because of our lack of ability. It’s because of the lack of interest people have had typically in bringing us into those spaces.”

McQueen was on his feet. Eyes widened. Remote in hand. A smile on his face. They were really taking it there. 

“This isn’t changing,” Torres said of the analytics emphasis. “It is not changing from that quantitative perspective and the only remedy is for the power brokers to feed people and to encourage them into that path.”

McQueen exists in the shadows. Many behind-the-scenes figures in NBA circles do all they can to be up front. But McQueen makes an art of blending in, of being known and not recognized. He once turned down an offer from current Warriors lead assistant coach Mike Brown to come work for the Lakers, instead recommending someone else. He prefers it that way. 

Yet moments like the “High Noon” segment, when his passion was front and center, when influential voices shared his talking points with the masses, are proof this movement is making headway. He becomes even more eager to get back in the trenches.

That’s where Josiah Harris needs him.

“I will stand by this statement for the rest of my life,” said Harris, 17, one of the shining examples of the program . “Anwar knows the WHOLE WORLD! If you are with him long enough, you’ll meet someone important at any moment, anywhere.”

Harris is now a senior at San Leandro High and eyeing Howard University on the fall. But he was entering high school when he started with T.E.A.M. He completed the program and immediately became the video coordinator for his high school’s boys basketball team. He is finishing his senior year and he is a microcosm for the potential of the program. He was in the second grade when Musante met him. Now, he is a four-year football letterman and has four years as video coordinator for the varsity boys hoops team. He was basically an assistant coach for the Pirates this season, dipping his toes in a career interest of his, and wants to do the same in college.

“Josiah knows what he’s doing is the same thing I’m doing,” said Laughlin, who mentors Harris and volunteers his expertise for T.E.A.M. events. “It’s crazy what Anwar’s doing, honestly. No one else is doing what he’s doing. He’s definitely creating opportunities for young men and women that wouldn’t have them. It creates an industry knowledge that bypasses social capital. What he does is make the trade practical and tangible. These kids are learning every single branch of the software and every single thing it can do. Anwar has me show these kids everything and I’m like, ‘We don’t even use that part.’ I can’t wait to see Josiah’s doing in 10 years.”

The students have explored Silicon Valley, networking and learning new technologies. They’ve participated in tech events all over, been trained by professionals galore, listened to talks from some of the biggest names in sports and tech. Some of them may not even work in sports, because they now have connections outside of the industry as well.

Sixty students have gone through the Core Program since 2016 and 80 percent have earned industry certification in SportsCode Elite software, making them the youngest certified users in the world. More than 3,000 students have been served — including 15 interns at NBA Summer League, 10 students placed in various roles in athletic departments and two students who went abroad to England and South Africa.

“T.EA.M. is about where the love of the game can take you,” Musante said. “It’s about meeting students where they are. T.E.A.M. is an equalizer, ensuring that young folks who are often underestimated have the opportunities to explore their passions, develop skills and build networks to unlock their potential, right now.”

But with all the work put in, all the recommendations, all the networking, McQueen still sees the hole in the system — which is why it matters a great deal when this topic comes to the forefront. In the NBA currently, there are at most a handful of African-American video coordinators, including Chris Kent with the Bulls, Ryan Frazier with the Suns and Ryan Lumpkin with the Wizards. The others on McQueen’s list have moved up the ranks, but the pipeline hasn’t been replenished diversely. As data and analytics have become more popular, McQueen has watched the talent become even less diverse at the entry levels.

Which only means there is more work to be done. More young people to train and get ready to seize the opportunity. More recommendations to make. More spaces to infiltrate for the sake of the movement.

“A few of us who have been around the NBA are realizing we have the power to change the neighborhood, to change the narrative,” McQueen said. “By connecting the dots between analytics and the knowledge they represent with the experiences we represent as Black professionals, and the connecting that to the types of jobs our young people deserve, we are starting a quiet revolution in sports."