As a second-gen African American analyst from Northwestern, I never expected to find myself in a line at Fanatics Fest—surrounded by fans waiting to trade chess moves on NBA shot charts. But that’s exactly what happened. Tonight, I turned basketball analytics into an interactive ritual: reading defensive schemes through heat maps drawn on sidewalk courts. This isn’t just data—it’s culture coded in pixels and rhythm. I saw how the black community’s collective wisdom meets my statistical rigor, and the game became a new kind of language.