Lokvani talks to Sachin Gupta, who was recently named Minnesota Timberwolves' Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations. Sachin is the son of Ram and Meetu Gupta of Carlisle, MA.

Gupta spent the 2018-19 season with the Detroit Pistons as their Assistant General Manager. Prior to joining the Pistons, Gupta spent the 2017-18 season as Special Advisor to Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey. This was Gupta’s second stint with the Rockets having spent the first six seasons of his NBA career laying the foundation for the team’s analytics department while assisting with strategy and salary cap management.

Gupta also worked with the Philadelphia 76ers, joining the team as a consultant in 2013 while completing his MBA at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He would be named the team’s Vice President of Basketball Operations in 2014.

A graduate of MIT, Gupta began his career at ESPN where he helped foster basketball’s analytical movement with the advent of advanced NBA metrics. During that time, Gupta also became well versed in the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement while developing the widely popular NBA Trade Machine.

Congratulations on becoming EVP for the Timberwolves. What motivated you to take this position? 

I was very excited about joining a young, up-and-coming team under the direction of our new President Gersson Rosas and our new Head Coach Ryan Saunders. There's a long road ahead but we have a chance to build something special here.

We want to be creative, forward-thinking, and always questioning the norm. All 30 NBA teams are operating at a high level and they are all doing their best to achieve the ultimate goal of winning a championship. In order for us to achieve that goal, we're going to have to be different and be ahead of the curve as the game evolves.

I gravitated towards sports from a young age. I think it was a variety of things - it's unpredictable, it's exciting, it's systematic and fair, it's meritocratic. And it's a shared experience that brings people together.

You are a very unique in that you have combined Analytical Skills  with your passion for sports. How did find this niche area?

I was very fortunate to be able to do so, but I did make a conscious effort to try. When I was looking for internships as an undergrad, I specifically looked for opportunities that would allow me to apply my coursework in an industry I was passionate about. I was lucky to be able to find that opportunity at ESPN.com and continued down the path from there.

The idea was actually brought to me from a colleague, but I loved it and ran with it. For me, it was so much fun to study all of the trade rules in the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement and code all of that logic into the Trade Machine. I had no idea that years later, NBA trades would become part of my job.

Can we look forward to the world of sports that is impacted by Data and Analytics?

Absolutely. With or without analytics, the world of sports is fun and exciting because of the competition between incredible athletes and teams. Analytics may push teams towards more optimal strategies and cause different sports to evolve more quickly, but it doesn't change that fundamental appeal. If anything, the accelerating evolution of the game only adds to the intrigue.

Any place for AI in sports?

I think you can find a place for AI in most any industry, and that's true for sports as well. But the beauty of sports is in the human athletic competition, and we can't lose sight of that.