That video up top is a play from a New York Knicks game agains the Toronto Raptors. It was captured and created using a video system called SportVU, which is licensed by 15 NBA teams from Stats LLC. Basically, they track where every player is for every second of every game. And for the first time, one of those teams opened up and talked to Grantland this month about how it uses the data.
SportVU isn’t a new tech. It’s been around for some years now; teams have just kept the ways that they use the data a secret. That’s not isolated to just the camera tech; teams have entire stats departments that work in secret, developing in-house ways to evaluate players. The video above is the culmination of all of Toronto’s work, which is actually a deeply complex software project.
via Gizmodo
March 19, 2013
