He s too smart to be in basketball How Raptors 905 assistant Eric Khoury turned a Master s degree into an NBA gig - The Athletic

He s too smart to be in basketball How Raptors 905 assistant Eric Khoury turned a Master s degree into an NBA gig

May 31, 2021 Eric Khoury was waiting for thousands of pictures to be processed into data when an idea was formed. It was the spring of 2012, and Khoury was a Master’s student studying experimental fluid dynamics at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. His studies entailed placing a model — a cylinder — inside a 7-metre water channel and observing the frequency and angles vortex filaments were shed. This particle imaging velocimetry research had no obvious basketball connection, but it did offer plenty of time downtime in the lab as the photos his 25-images-per-second cameras took were uploaded and converted into data. Advertisement That downtime allowed Khoury to catch up on his reading. A long-time hoops fan, he came across an article on the new SportVU player tracking cameras popping up in NBA arenas. The similarities to his work stood out: cameras taking 25 pictures per second to track several different actors interacting within a defined space. At the time, only 10 teams had installed the cameras, with five more added the following year. This was a new technological frontier for basketball teams, and with that would come a need for people who could parse and manipulate the myriad lines of data those cameras would spit out each night. Khoury’s interest was sparked. As he worked on his thesis and began applying for jobs in his field, the idea wouldn’t fade. Now, nine years later, the 32-year-old Raptors 905 assistant coach realizes that his aerospace engineering and fluid dynamics research had unknowingly prepared him for a career in basketball all along. The leap itself, however, wasn’t as straightforward. A friend suggested Khoury start a Twitter account and reach out to Alex Rucker, who along with Keith Boyarsky made up the team’s analytics brain trust under GM Bryan Colangelo. Tweets turned into emails, and emails into a meeting over coffee. He knew he was lucky, but he had no idea how lucky he was. In their positions with the analytics department, Boyarsky noted that the team would regularly receive unsolicited emails, resumes or questions. “Eric was the first one that we ever actually called back,” he said. From there, Khoury made his pitch, explaining his background in particle imaging as well as the parallels between tracking player and ball movement visually at the same rate of 25 times a second. He impressed enough to earn a one-year, unpaid internship for the 2012-13 season. That meant Khoury, who was living with his brother at the time, also had to take shifts bartending downtown. Advertisement The Raptors had a base to work from, and Khoury ran with the project from there. He was programming, annotating plays and occasionally getting face-time in the office when the Raptors were at home. Sometimes he worked through the night, watching basketball and getting hooked on a new idea or wrinkle of an existing one. There was a steep learning curve, too, even though he was already a big basketball fan. “You start working with a team, and you realize there’s so much you don’t even know about. I’m working with the assistant coaches, and they’re like, ‘OK, can you classify all the different types of defence they’re playing?'” Khoury said. “I was like, ‘What do you mean, like, over, under?’ And they’re like, ‘No, is it switch, is it wall, is it trap,’ and so on. So you’re learning, and you’re kind of putting stuff in. Once I started getting more comfortable with that, and getting more things annotated, and knowing how the rotations were supposed to be, I thought, ‘You know what’d be a really cool project is if I could use where the five guys were on offence and try and predict where the defence should be or should have been.'” It’s what Zach Lowe would coin “ghost defenders” in in March 2013. (The team referred to it as “ideal defence.” Boyarsky estimates Khoury did 90 percent of the work developing that system.) The piece was big exposure for an analytics department made up of two consultants and an unpaid intern. It was also the foundation of what the Raptors still use to analyze their defence today, albeit with far greater complexity. Developing a system to analyze the ideal defence and evaluating what that meant for the players on the floor required ample time working closely with assistant coaches like Micah Nori and Tom Sterner. Khoury began enjoying the tactical part of the game even more, to the point it sparked an interest in coaching. “‘Why would you do this? Couldn’t they do that?’ And then we get into these long talks about the tactics of how you would cover things, and how you would exploit it,” he said. “It was so interesting to me. I loved it.” Advertisement View this post on Instagram When Nick Nurse replaced Casey for the 2018-19 season, keeping Khoury on his staff was a no-brainer. Their relationship had started back at Las Vegas Summer League in 2013, when Nurse joined Casey’s staff after a stint with Rio Grande, the G League program of the analytics-friendly Houston Rockets. “I spent a lot of time with both him and (Boyarsky), right from the onset, really,” Nurse said. “We developed a pretty good relationship just talking about the game. I was trying to learn the history quick in Toronto. I was trying to share my ideas, I was trying to get their viewpoint. Eric and I spent a lot of time together just hashing out the game.” Once Nurse saw Khoury’s passion for coaching, their relationship changed. Nurse is a proponent of aspiring coaches and assistants gaining experience as head coaches at different levels. He , then . Khoury was not at that place in his development yet, but Nurse saw a way to expedite his experience working closely with Raptors 905 in a more significant role further up the bench. “He decided to cross the hall and get into coaching,” said Nurse. “So he got in there, and I think that he’s fairly serious about pursuing his passion for coaching. You know me, I think that there’s levels, and I always say, his can’t equate it, but I’ve said head coaching in the G League was probably 50 times more valuable in a season than being behind the bench of an NBA team, being one of so many guys there. So just kind of equate that to he’s there at the front of the bench and he’s right there involved, versus kinda being our analytics-slash-assistant here with the Raptors. “When I was his age, I was working 14 basketball camps a summer trying to figure out how to teach, how to set screens and come off screens and pivot. Seriously, like, back in the day, young coaches were all summer really sitting around with a lot of coaches learning the fundamentals and things. That’s kinda the hands-on experience that he needed to get. Give him credit that he’s willing to dig in there and roll up his sleeves and get involved. It is probably better experience than it would be where he was (with the Raptors) as far as developing his craft and passion for coaching.” During the 2018-19 championship run, Khoury sat next to Mahlalela behind the Raptors bench. Their discussions further affirmed to Khoury that he needed more hands-on experience, and so Khoury joined Mahlalela’s 905 staff for the 2019-20 season. With a smaller staff, his role expanded. He had opponents he was responsible for “scouts” against, led video sessions with coaches and players and went over film one-on-one with players. The G League life , but Khoury was getting plenty of hands-on experience to sharpen his coaching skills. “I think that he really brought a different perspective than other coaches have, because he just came from a different pathway,” Mahlalela said. “I think we all come from different pathways, but his was unique from any of the other coaches in the Raptors mix. That, to me, provided a unique perspective and this way he could provide insight that other coaches didn’t think about. The game is not that unique, but Eric can see the unique angles because he came from a different stream.” The 2020-21 season was a unique experience, too, as Khoury was part of an even smaller staff under new head coach Patrick Mutombo. “He was a numbers guy, initially. When I wanted to check, something that I felt in my guts, Eric was that guy. But then, as I got to know him, I realized how curious he was about games,” Mutombo said. “Unfortunately, my experience has been a lot of analytics people come across like they have all the answers. What I loved about Eric was the fact he didn’t give you that, he didn’t project that, ‘I have all the answers.’ he’ll give suggestions. He’ll tell you what the numbers say, but in a way that was very humble, and that was very smart because it wasn’t a turn-off.” The mini 15-game season took place in a bubble in Orlando, meaning Khoury was apart from Tara, Graydon and their newborn son, Jackson for over a month. There was also little practice time and a condensed schedule, putting more on the shoulders of every assistant. Game plans, scouts and individual work with players can’t be pushed to the side, and the 905 program still demands wins along with the developmental aspect. “That’s been my guy, (since) almost (2019) Summer League,” 905 guard Matt Morgan said. “I mean, he’s definitely one of the coaches that I’ve gotten closest with. Been together for two years. Coach, he’s been one of the main reasons why I’ve been successful so far. What draws me to him is that he knows his stuff. He’s a champion. He’s always been someone I can go to about anything. He’s just one of those guys where, you know, he’s very relatable for a coach. That’s something that I’ve grown to appreciate about him.” The game was on the line, and Khoury had control of the whiteboard. Needing a bucket, Khoury drew up a simple play for the team’s best shooter to come off of a series of screens to get open. He was calm. He was certain. He kept a complex situation simple. It was then that Sam Morsy, Khoury’s teammate on the 2016 Court Cuts men’s league team, knew he had a future in coaching. “It worked to perfection. I knew the Raptors would be all right,” Morsy, a marketing manager at TSN, joked. “The play came to fruition perfectly. Naturally, everyone on the team celebrated our teammate who made the game-winner, but I remember appreciating the poise and precision Eric employed in those dire seconds prior just as much. It was a quick yet impressive moment.” To date, that is the bulk of Khoury’s experience in the lead chair. Yet that moment illustrates why those who know him think he’ll be a natural if he eventually gets a head coaching opportunity. “The analytics one is the obvious one, but it’s more a way of thinking,” Mahlalela said. “He’s not set in the rules of the NBA because he didn’t grow up in that. So he’s just looking at it from a perspective of one-plus-one doesn’t always equal two.” “He’s very smart, and he’s got a great tactical mind when it comes down to just thinking creatively about the game and understanding what wins and what loses, and what has impact, and what is just kind of window dressing,” Boyarsky said. I think he’s as good as anybody I’ve ever met at that. But he also has a really great way about him. He’s very easy to talk to, and very calm and considered, and doesn’t rattle very easily.” Khoury is hoping that the opportunity comes soon. Born and raised in Toronto, a career with the Raptors organization is a dream come true. Mutombo is expected to finish at least one more season as 905 head coach, and there will be several internal candidates to move into his spot as the team continues rotating coaches to maximize experience and diversity of background. Khoury could be one of them, although if Mutombo has it his way, someone else will beat the 905 to the punch. “I want to lose him. I really do,” Mutombo said. “I feel like the best thing that can happen to those guys, my goal is to help them to propel them to the next thing. I’m passionate about their growth, and I lose myself in what’s best for them, what takes them to the next level. With Eric, I think the next step for him is to run his own team, and I think he has is fully capable of doing it. He certainly has the mental capacity to do it. He has the knowledge to do it. And he has the hunger and the appetite to learn and grow.” There may not be a background in the NBA quite like a Bachelor’s in aerospace engineering and a Master’s in experimental fluid dynamics. Some idle reading sparked an idea that led to an internship, a role in an NBA analytics department and an unsuspected passion for coaching. Maybe drawing up a game-winning play isn’t such a long way from vortex filaments, if you’re open to the paths that present themselves to you. “It’s crazy to say, (he’s) 32, but he’s seen the field develop from a couple of teams kind of experimenting around to this thing where everybody is doing it, and there’s massive investments in every franchise,” Boyarsky said. “He was there from the ground floor and actually built up a lot of those foundations. So he’s in a pretty unique position where there’s this overlap of all these different influences coming together. “I think it gives him a great shot to be something pretty special in the coaching side.” (Top photo courtesy Raptors 905)

Get all-access to exclusive stories

Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.