Isaac
Years ago
Development of NBA video strategy and ghosts
Read this Grantland article and watch the video to see how far NBA teams are taking their video analysis of games now. 15 teams in the league are using cameras that cost $100,000 per year to log advanced movement information and then the Raptors have talked about some of the software they've built on top of it.
Particularly interesting is the software's analysis of where their defensive players are and where they should be, showing a "ghost" player (think of ghost drivers in Mario Kart). They can build a picture of how is most often out of position. The software takes into account player tendencies, skills, size and so on.
One thing they note is that the actual players are frequently less aggressive on help defense than the ghosts. Broader suggestions like this would be easier to deliver to players than instructions specific to certain situations.
Full story
If you're spending tens of millions on a roster, venue, and everything that goes with it, why wouldn't you set aside a few hundred thousand for hardware and software development to improve even the 1% it might take to snatch some wins?
The 15 teams using this type of camera are listed as:
New York, Orlando, Boston, Washington, Milwaukee, Toronto, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Minnesota, Golden State, Houston, San Antonio, and Phoenix.Another great snippet:
Ultra-aggressive help defense is really hard work. Replay that clip and watch how far DeRozan's ghost has to move as the Knicks swing the ball. That's brutal, and it's not a coincidence that the only team that consistently mirrors the help defense of its ghosts is Miami, Rucker says. The Heat have three of the best wing defenders in the league in Shane Battier, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade, and the latter two are among the NBA's most gifted pure athletes. James can mimic DeRozan's hyperactive ghost in a way no other player can, Rucker says. "LeBron basically messes up the system and the ghosts," Rucker says. "He does things that are just unsustainable for most players."
