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Basketball Statistician's Digest:
Quantifying Basketball’s Intangibles, With Some Help From Computers

From The New York Time ~ Pro Basketball By Jonathan Abrams
Download source here: ' Quantifying Basketball’s Intangibles, With Some Help From Computers '

"... Perched high above and adjacent to the court, six high-definition cameras in a semi-circle have captured and traced the movements of each player, the referees and the basketball in Games 3 and 4 of the N.B.A. finals at Amway Arena. The cameras streamlined information into two data processing computers tucked behind the rafters that are aimed at rapidly defining an N.B.A. game in a way that has not been seen before. ..."

"... Hard is perhaps an understatement. In the N.B.A.’s play-by-play description, a typical offensive possession often consists of a rebound, a shot and an assist, if that much. In that time span, there are dozens of other factors that affect a play, including the movement of players away from the ball, matchups and the velocity of passes, that have never been officially recorded. ..."

"... “You always hear a player telling a coach that, I played the best defense I could,” Hellmuth said. “Now, the coach is going to be able to respond that, ‘You didn’t play the same defense last time here,’ because they are going to have the metrics to prove it as far as what type of proximity he was in, whether he had a hand in the face and whether he was there or not.” ..."

"... The input is received and then deciphered in real time. The cameras track virtual dots on each player’s head, as well as on the basketball and the referees. ..."

"... The referees are tracked to see where they make their calls and how fast they are covering the court’s length. ..."

Read more in The New York Time ~ Pro Basketball

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