Military missile-tracking system gives pro
basketball a high-tech assist
By San Jose Mercury News, adapted by Newsela staff
LEXILE: 1070
https://www.newsela.com/articles/basketball-data/id/4149/
For their recent first-round playoff matchup with the Golden State
Warriors, the Los Angeles Clippers had a little help on defense. They used
to have to send a scout to games or watch film if they wanted to figure
out how to defend Warriors star Steph Curry. Now they can use computers
to find that answer.
This year every NBA team can use advanced tracking data from a company
called SportVU. SportVU cameras are installed in every NBA arena. They
collect large sets of small tidbits of information about the position of the
ball and every player on the court for every second of every game of the
season.
The data from the cameras is starting to revolutionize professional
basketball. It is influencing everything from game strategy and player
conditioning to how fans interact with the sport.
“It’s a real game changer,” said Ben Alamar, a professor of sport
management, who also works for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. “It’s
allowing us to ask questions that we really couldn’t ask before.”
Thanks to advances in technology, scientists and companies can explore
everything from outer space to individual consumer desires. The possible
uses for the NBA’s new camera system is the latest example of the trend
known as big data.
Basketball Pushing The Edge
All sports are at the point where they’re using a lot of data to make better
decisions, said Brian Kopp, a senior executive at Stats, a Chicago-based
sports data company. “Basketball is pushing the front edge of that
conversation.”
SportVU was founded in Israel in 2005 by technicians who had worked on
optical missile-tracking systems for that country’s military. After Stats
acquired SportVU in 2008, it redesigned the system to track basketball.
The system’s cameras are arranged in an oval in the rafters of the arenas.
The linked cameras collect location data 25 times a second. They track the
two-dimensional position of each player on the court and the threedimensional position of the ball. Computer “vision technology” keeps tabs
on individual players by the number and color on their jerseys.
The player-tracking data is fed from the cameras to a computer
workstation in each arena. Then it’s uploaded to SportVU’s servers, and
from there it’s fed into an Oracle database. The database matches it up
with the play-by-play data from human scorekeepers. Teams can get
reports based on the combined data 60 seconds after something has
happened on the court, according to Kopp.
The technology was first embraced by individual NBA teams, rather than
by the whole league. Four teams installed the camera system before the
2010-2011 season. Before the start of this season, the league formally
adopted the technology and made sure all NBA teams could use it.
A Shooter's Sweet Spots
The SportVU system can determine how fast players move, how often they
change direction and how much they run during a game. It can track how
well players shoot from particular spots on the court.
The system also helps track defense. Users can learn how well a particular
player guards another or how well a team does against a certain defense.
The data reinforces what coaches already know in many cases, experts say.
It is especially helpful in scouting opponents. Coaches can know their rivals
as well as they know their own team.
According to data from the NBA’s website, Clippers star Blake Griffin takes
the vast majority of his shots at or near the basket. He’s an excellent
shooter there. He also takes a lot of long 2-point shots in the arc around
the foul stripe. Despite favoring that area, he’s a relatively poor shooter
there.
“You can make adjustments based on that,” Sammy Gelfand, the Warriors’
coordinator for data, said in an interview. “At the end of the day, you want
to take away what they do well.”
Big Data Says: Pass The Ball!
SportVU helped teams determine that the 3-point shot is one of the most
efficient ways to score points. It also recommended taking uncontested
shots, said Steve Hellmuth, the NBA’s director of operations and
technology.
That led to a lot of passing and games where the ball moves rapidly
around, Hellmuth said.
Teams also use SportVU to help identify players they want to add and to
gauge players’ fitness. The system can help the training staff know if a
player is suffering from fatigue.
Fans can see some of the SportVU data on the NBA’s website. They can
see diagrams showing how well and how often players shoot from
particular spots on the court. Fans can also find data on how well certain
players shoot when guarded by particular members of a rival team.
In the near future, the NBA and its teams may be doing a lot more with
the data. It could allow coaches to make real-time in-game adjustments to
their play calling. The data could also allow the NBA’s TV partners to
quickly broadcast the same images and analysis that now is available only
after the game.
The league might be able to automate some of the calls now made by
human referees and scorekeepers with the camera system.
“This data will become more valuable, more powerful just as time goes
on,” said Stats’ Kopp.
Name
How has technology changed pro basketball? Use one piece of textual
evidence to back up your answer. (RI.1 + 2)
What is the central idea of this piece? (RI.2)
Choose two words from the passage that were difficult for you. Write them in the chart
below and fill in the information. (RI.4)
Vocabulary Word
Definition
Picture or Sentence to
remember