Data Scientist, Basketball Operations

Data Scientist, Basketball Operations | Los Angeles Sparks (Jobs in Basketball Performance Analysis TheASPA)

🌐 Los Angeles Sparks📍El Segundo, California, USA 🏀 WNBA | Basketball Operations 💰 $110,000–$130,000 pa 🕒 Full-time

The Los Angeles Sparks are recruiting a Data Scientist, Basketball Operations to strengthen data-driven decision-making across the organisation.

Working closely with coaches, scouts, performance staff and front-office leadership, the Data Scientist will develop statistical models, automated reporting and actionable basketball insights supporting player evaluation, scouting, roster construction, coaching and player development.

The Role

This is an applied basketball analytics position combining data science, statistical research and basketball operations.

The successful candidate will work with complex basketball datasets to identify performance trends and competitive advantages, while translating technical analysis into practical information that coaches, scouts and decision-makers can use.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop predictive models supporting player evaluation, lineup optimisation, scouting, in-game strategy and roster management.
• Analyse player tracking, play-by-play and event-level data.
• Develop analytical reports, visualisations and tools for coaches, scouts and front-office staff.
• Build and validate models for player development, skill-specific growth and opponent scouting.
• Research new basketball metrics and analytical methodologies.
• Maintain reproducible research workflows and documentation.
• Build features, transformations and metrics for internal models and reporting.
• Integrate basketball data providers including Second Spectrum and Synergy into internal reporting structures.
• Collaborate with Data Engineering to improve data infrastructure and reliability.
• Contribute to software development associated with Basketball Operations R&D.
• Communicate analytical findings clearly to coaches, scouts and senior leadership.
• Support major decision-making periods including Free Agency, the Draft and staffing.

What They’re Looking For

Candidates should have:

• 2+ years of professional experience in data science or a related field.
• Strong proficiency in R or Python and SQL.
• Experience developing statistical and/or machine-learning models using real-world datasets.
• Strong data visualisation skills using tools such as ggplot2, grobblR, Plotly, Shiny or Dash.
• Ability to translate complex quantitative findings into accessible, actionable insights.
• Strong interest in basketball analytics and knowledge of contemporary basketball metrics and concepts.
• Ability to work flexible hours during the WNBA season.

A Bachelor's or Master's degree in Statistics, Data Science, Mathematics, Computer Science or another quantitative discipline is preferred.

Desirable Experience

Particularly relevant experience includes:

• Basketball tracking data, video logs or advanced play-by-play data.
• Professional or collegiate sports analytics.
• AWS, GCP or Azure.
• Bayesian modelling.
• Optimisation techniques.
• Time-series forecasting.
• ETL pipeline development.
• Software engineering tools and workflows.

Salary

💰 $110,000–$130,000 per year, commensurate with experience.

Why This Role Stands Out

The position sits directly within Basketball Operations, providing an opportunity to apply advanced data science to real competitive decisions across:

Scouting → Player Evaluation → Draft → Free Agency → Player Development → Lineup & Game Strategy

It represents a strong example of the growing integration of data science, performance analysis and decision intelligence within elite professional sport.

The Los Angeles Sparks are an equal opportunity employer and provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities throughout the recruitment process and employment.

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Data Scientist, Basketball Operations | Los Angeles Sparks (Jobs in Basketball Performance Analysis TheASPA)

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