There’s a chance if you were going through the channel lineup this past Thursday and saw a little celebrity basketball being played on BET and thought you saw a familiar face near courtside that you may have actually been correct. Recently, 2000 Bridgeport High School graduate Chris Cunanan was busy serving as the producer for The BET Experience Celebrity Basketball Game at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

 

For those that may last remember, Cunanan was working with the Cleveland Cavaliers as the Manager of Game Operations. However, he ended up returning to Los Angeles to continue his work in professional basketball. And before going to the BET game, here’s how he ended up back in the City of Angels.

 

“This is actually my second time living in Los Angeles,” said Cunanan. “I’ve been out here since early in 2014.”

 

While his most notable appearance lately was with BET, the work was a free-lance gig. Cunanan’s full-time work is still in the NBA and with the Los Angeles Clippers as an associated producer. 

 

“It’s really different than the position I had with Cleveland,” said Cunanan. “With the Clippers, I’m in the control room doing what a lot of people recognize as part of an NBA game experience.”

 

The experience is multi-faceted. For instance, if Clippers’ star Blake Griffin has a double-double and that information needs to be conveyed to the fans, Cunanan has staff around him that he can direct to create a graphic for display at The Staples Center.

 

“We do that relatively quickly,” said Cunanan. “You try to do it when there’s a break. If he’s got an interesting statistic, or any player for that matter, if there’s a timeout or the player is at the free throw line you get it up as soon as possible.”

 

Another thing that Cunanan is responsible for is keeping the crowd engaged. If the game is getting to key moments into the third of fourth quarter, Cunanan has to be the one to decide how to get the crowd fired up.

 

“If it’s the right time of the game, I’ll call for a pump up video to be played on the scoreboard,” said Cunanan. “You have to know when to do it and it really gets everyone going. This experience has been a lot of fun.”

 

For Cunanan, the chance to be with the Clippers came after he returned to Los Angeles to work with Sparks of the WNBA after the team was acquired by a group led by NBA legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson. After eight months, the opportunity with the Clippers came at about the same time the new ownership group took charge. In fact, Cunanan got to take over a totally new position.

 

“To be honest, they didn’t even know what they wanted out of the position. At the Staples Center, they have their own staff that typically did the things I’m doing now in the control room. The Clippers wanted someone on the Clippers end to facilitate their brand their message as opposed of a staff member of Staples Center,” said Cunanan, who works with the Staples staff. “It’s worked out well as I’m the only full-time person in the control working with content. I think they’re happy with what I’m doing.”

 

Apparently, people are noticing, including those at BET.

 

“The Clippers allow me the opportunity to do free-lane work and when BET contacted me to do this I was ready,” said Cunanan. “It turned into a wonderful experience.”

 

The BET Celebrity game is in its third year and this year’s lineup had names from across the entertainment, rap, NBA and basketball genres – and more. The actual contest was last Saturday and was shown live on BET’s Web site. Since that time, it was edited to be shown on the network Thursday.

 

“There are always a lot of big names at the NBA games, but there was nothing but stars at this. You had Snoop Dog, Chris Brown, Floyd Mayweather and anyone else you can think of,” said Cunanan. “The biggest thing that happened was that a rapper named Meek Mill was involved and he’s dating Niki Minaj. She showed up in the second quarter and it just created a whole of buzz.  It was part of a really entertaining event.”

 

Cunanan said he couldn’t get caught up in the star hoopla. In fact, he said his only conversation he had was with Chris Brown.

 

“He wanted to warm up at halftime and I’m leading a group out on the floor and there are other things planned and I just had to tell him he couldn’t be out there,” said Cunanan. “He was really nice when I told him that and just ‘okay, no problem.’ That was about it for my interaction, but when you do this you don’t even think about it because you have details big and small you deal with.”

 

Cunanan said the makeup and direction of the game was left in his hands. He had to determine how the game flowed from a running clock, to going with four quarters and even when free throws would be shot and securing game officials.

 

“With all of that, it was a pretty solid experience for my first basketball game outside of the NBA and I think I learned a lot from it,” said Cunanan. “Hopefully, I’ll get to do it again next year.”

 

Editor's Note: Top photo shows Chris Cunanan, center, with his crew for the BET basketball game, while he's shown with Clippers Coach Glenn "Doc" Rivers at a holiday party. Bottom photo shows Cunanan listening to Earvin "Magic" Johnson during Cunanan's brief second string with the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks. Photos courtesy of Chris Cunanan.