Is the NBA Going High-Tech?

According to Ian Thomson at Sports Illustrated, the NBA is hoping to apply technology similar to the one used in the film “Avatar” to track every movement of its players during every game. “I’d like to have all of the information James Cameron was getting in ‘Avatar,’” said Steve Hellmuth, the NBA’s Executive Vice President of Operations and Technology. “We can track the players as blobs on the court – where they’re going and what they’re doing, so I’ll be able to figure out the positions of the shoulders, the feet.”

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban believes the technology can help improve players’ fundamentals: “From shooting form to how they get over a pick,” he said. “If we can do release-point comparisons on a shot, like they do with baseball pitchers, we may be able to improve our shooting.” Another obvious application for this new data would be for video games. It could be used for simulations and for coaching staffs, fans, mobile applications, and a definitive statistical-representation of the game for analysis.

In other words, the league will not begin to understand all the opportunities until it actually has the data in hand. Hellmuth is rally bullish on this, stating: “We need to pick the right system, the right technology, stand it up and then develop applications around it. We’re on the road to it, and it’s valid, no question. Eventually, we’ll have face recognition, and we’ll keep layering technology to improve it. We may get it to where ‘Avatar’ is today.”