The below is an excerpt from the article, but really highlights the evolution of analytic and how data scientists are taking massive paycuts for the prestige of working in the NBA.
After our trip to the NBA Finals in 2012, the Thunder decided they needed their analytics leader in Oklahoma City full time, which was certainly a positive for the field. They didn't, however, want to pay anywhere near what I would be willing to accept to move my family from San Francisco to OKC. They had already successfully recruited my former intern, a Stanford student, to accept a 60-plus-hour-a-week job for a salary that was far below what he could have easily gotten at a big consulting firm or investment bank, so they believed they could do the same with my position. At the time, they were probably right. There were still skilled people willing to take salaries well below their market value to work in the NBA. I left with no hard feelings.
So, after five seasons with the Sonics and Thunder, I hooked on with the Cavaliers. The process of being trusted was much quicker in Cleveland. Several members of the team's front office were actually eager to hear what the analytics said.
But soon a new challenge emerged: Starting in the 2013-14 season, SportVU cameras were installed in every NBA arena. The amount of data available to teams suddenly grew from a pond to an ocean. Think about it: Those cameras capture the coordinates of 10 players plus the ball 25 times every second. That's a vast amount of data. As a result, the race to unlock the secrets of the SportVU requires a much higher level of skill than what was needed when I first started working for the Sonics. In the beginning, anyone with advanced spreadsheet skills could probably add value to a front office. Now, though, deep statistical programming skills, along with advanced computer science knowledge, are needed to create value. These are skills for which companies such as Google and Facebook pay quite handsomely.
But teams have been slow to recognize the sandbox they're now playing in. The analytics community worked hard to be accepted and learn the language of the NBA, but maybe we did too good a job fitting in. Entry-level analysts are viewed not much differently from entry-level video assistants: lucky to be in the NBA and worth a salary not much higher than $35,000. Teams are used to competing with high school and college athletic departments for staff, not with McKinsey and Bain. Realistically, aspiring NBA analysts must be willing to take at least a 50 percent pay cut from what they could earn elsewhere.
