Sports

Did You Know the NBA Is Using Missile-Tracking Cameras? Here’s Why (And It’s Not What You Think)

Technology first developed for tracking missiles is now being used by the NBA. As of right now, only 10 teams in the leage are using it, but this year four of them made it to the playoffs and one of them made it into the finals.

Fast Company profiles this technology — SportVU — calling it “Moneyball 2.0.” If you’re unfamiliar with the reference, it refers to the true story turned Brad Pitt 2011 drama of the Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, who hired a man to use analytics to help him pick players best suited to actually help win baseball games.

SportVU uses analytics to track each players’ shots, passes and running patterns. As Fast Company points out, SportVU can tell you not just a player’s shooting average, but “his shooting average after dribbling one vs. two times, or his shooting average with a defender three feet away vs. five feet away.”

SportVU Analytic Technology Changing How NBA Looks at Basketball

This image shows Oklahoma City's Russel Westbrook's shot attempts after five dribbles. Fast Company calls them pretty wild. (Image: SportVU via Fast Company)

SportVU and other analytic cameras and software like Sportvision have the Moneyball-like ability to potentially change the how sport is “coached, to how it’s recruited–even to how we calculate a player’s worth.”

Still, even with the Moneyball comparison, Fast Company states this mindset sells the technology short:

“What’s interesting about the Moneyball analogy is that they were using data everybody else had and putting a new twist on it,” says Brian Kopp, a vice president at Stats, the company that owns SportVU. “We’re doing that, but also entering into the equation data no one had before. It’s almost Moneyball Plus.” Stats pretty much owns the IP on player stats across sports. Whether it’s the NBA or the NFL that you’re reading about on ESPN or CBS, all those player metrics are being provided by Stats (which is oddly enough, half owned by News Corp and AP). And what they don’t track themselves, they license exclusively from the pro sports themselves.

But technology has been getting smarter. A few years back, Stats realized the importance securing the future technologies in stats tracking, so they acquired an Israeli company called SportVU, that had already repurposed military tracking technology for use in international soccer. “It was an offensive and defensive play,” Kopp says. “The defensive was, another company could automate what we did. The offensive was, we can collect all sorts of new data.”

Simultaneously, this shifted Stats’ relationship with the industry overnight. Whereas they’d once paid leagues for their data, Stats began approaching the teams themselves to supply it.

SportVU Analytic Technology Changing How NBA Looks at Basketball

Passing Details for Jason Kid. (Image: SportVU)

An example of where SportVU can come into play, according to Fast Company, is with assists. It explains that assists are usually attributed to the person who passes the ball to the person who then scores next. But what if the person doesn’t score, even though good passes are being made? As Fast Company puts it: What if the best passer in the world is on a team of people who can’t shoot?

In this case, analytics like SportVU can identify these players who may be better suited for teams with good shooters but would otherwise be overlooked because they were never getting official assists.

The SportVU technology is currently only used by the NBA but the company is looking into modifications for the NFL as well.

Read more about the technology and its analytics capability here.

(H/T: Popular Science)

Comments (16)

  • Detroit paperboy
    Posted on June 22, 2012 at 11:33am

    I thought it was to track the felons on the court…….

    Report Post »  
  • hi
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 7:59pm

    I don’t need a missle tracker to know the point guard goes one on five every play without passing to my shooter.

    Report Post » hi  
  • GWARREN5
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 5:41pm

    I think techology is great, except for that irsh spring ad keeps blocking the page. I am getting tired of it.

    GWARREN5  
  • OniKaze
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 3:36pm

    I didn’t know the NBA was still around… I don’t know ANYONE who cares about or watches Basketball (and surprisingly I know a lot of people..).

    I thought they put that sport to rest a few years back… I wonder, are ALL of the teams still all state Tax-payer funded? I know that most all of the teams were under-water and were relying on state bail-outs to keep the league in operation a few years back…. I wonder if that has changed…

    Report Post » OniKaze  
  • rickc34
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 1:31pm

    The real reason is so many of Obamas donors go to these events

    Report Post »  
  • lukerw
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 1:29pm

    Scientific Sports? Let us just employ Robots… and eliminate the Human Factor!

    Report Post » lukerw  
  • Norcalsteve
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 1:27pm

    So, you mean to tell me, this can be used to basically monitor where someone is going, how long they stay, and who they see the most… I can see where this is going, its just packaged as “Sports” for now… yay! oh, and I agree with you Culpergang… They are taking the Sport out of the game…

    Report Post »  
  • SLOWBIDEN
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 1:08pm

    That’s exactly what I thought it was for

    Report Post »  
    • BIgWheeler
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 7:11pm

      Right!? I didn’t think the Clippers were going to launch a cruise missile strike on the Celtics. Although that would certainly have me watching.

      Report Post » BIgWheeler  
  • tckid17
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 1:02pm

    I wonder if the NBA had to jump through a lot of Hoops to implement this? The opposing teams are exploiting Jason, “He’s just a Kidd!”

    Report Post »  
  • Stunner
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 12:56pm

    Stat’s awesome news!

    Report Post » Stunner  
  • CulperGang
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 12:54pm

    Humans flaws and weaknesses ARE part of the game that makes the game a COMPETITION,
    Take competition out and the sport is bland. Not all technology is edifiying. The quest for money is going to kill the human activity of competition. They might as well just have robots that they can program. blah.

    Report Post » CulperGang  
    • copey99
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 8:57pm

      This technology is tracking stats in a different way to identify who they better player is, not elminating weaknesses or human flaws

      Report Post »  

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