Basketball, which is over 120 years old, has always been the most mainstream sport in the world. Since its invention in 1891, the rules, player talents and tactical strategies have all kept pace with the times. In recent years, both the NBA, players and teams have been constantly pursuing to improve the excitement of football games and the viewing experience of fans, and one of the key projects is new technology.
When we see every move on the court, in addition to the awareness of the players themselves and the tactics designed by the coach, technology has become an important "black hand" in guiding the game. Data has become one of the basis for the coach to call tactics. Video collection and marking are necessary scripts for analysis. , motion tracking sensing is a prescription for players to improve and improve. Football games have been upgraded from hand-to-hand combat between players and coaches' battle of wits to a technological war.
In the past 10 years, the level of NBA shooters has reached unprecedented heights. In addition to the guidance of game style and the emergence of talents, the assistance of technology and data is also the key point of the turning point.
For NBA shooters, technology can be used to refine and adjust everything from shot selection, shot movement to timing. "I think shooting is the most important basketball action that requires the help of technology. Shooting is everything from shot selection, action initiation to final shot. A large amount of data and images are needed for verification and adjustment, and the help of technology is needed at this time.”
Professional sports are like battlefields. Nowadays, in addition to player ability and coach scheduling, technology and data have gradually become one of the main battlefields. In the past 10 years, the NBA has installed STATS SportVU in all its home stadiums to capture the footprints of players and balls. It can detect sports status from a new angle. The most famous one is the use of high-resolution tracking cameras to capture the subtle movements of athletes every minute. Thousands of images can be produced. SportVU has pushed the basketball game into the era of data mining and shaken up this multi-billion industry. It has changed NBA team decision-making, player training, skills and tactics, evaluation standards and fans' viewing experience. It can almost be said to have completely changed the game. itself.
Although the NBA began to sign contracts with other companies (Sportradar and Second Spectrum) for player data tracking in 2018, strong teams have also begun to realize that through data analysis, they can optimize their style of play, including making it more efficient. With more shooting and more three-pointers, NBA executives said that the massive data produced by SportVU has accelerated the arrival of the three-pointer era.
Now many teams will use the more advanced ShotTracker, which uses a sensing basketball, a carrying device (wrist and elbow pads) and a camera to collect data, and uses the chip inside to calculate the hand strength, angle and arc, thereby To improve shooting movements and mechanics, Klay Thompson is a heavy user of ShotTracker. "I almost always use ShotTracker whenever I practice. I have to seize every opportunity to get data. There will be various situations in the game, good or bad conditions, physical fitness and These are important references at critical moments.”
Davyeon Ross, co-founder of ShotTracker, believes that data tracking systems will significantly change the appearance of football games in the next few years. “Coaches now rely more and more on technology, especially more advanced data and situations, such as 1 to 6 passes. Shooting efficiency, etc." Ross also mentioned that teams including the Rockets and Bucks interpret the data and adopt a combat method based on three-pointers and attacking the basket to have the best offensive efficiency.
Ross emphasized that the main battleground in the NBA in the future will be data and analysis. "Almost all team scouts have used technology-assisted analysis to collect and interpret player information, and the marketing department also uses data to analyze sales."
In the 2018-19 season, just a few months before the Raptors won the championship, head coach Nick Nurse was facing a thorny problem. The main guard Kyle Lowry suddenly lost his touch and fell into a career low of 30% defense. As the most research-minded and innovative coach in the NBA, Nurse did not put the pressure on trainers and players, but tried to detect and solve problems through technology and data.
Nurse knew that the data everyone received could not dig into deeper problems, so he turned to the innovative technology "Noahlytics Data Service" that the Tyrannosaurus was working with at the time, which was developed by a technology company called Noah Basketball. The software also captures data through cameras, but the Noah data system can record more detailed data, including the shooting and shooting steps, the shooting arc, the angle of landing, and the cylinder offset when the player releases, etc., and generates in-depth The information is for coaches, trainers and players to interpret and apply.
The Raptors are the first team in the NBA to introduce the Noah data system. By collecting Lowry's shooting data during low periods and normal training, the team found that Lowry's shooting angle was deviated. "His shooting arc was only 41 degrees. , but his goal arc in good condition should be 46-47 degrees." Nurse said, "Without Noah, it would be difficult for us to detect this change with the naked eye and existing technology."
