What SportVU could mean for the NBA 2K series - SteveM's Blog

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What SportVU could mean for the NBA 2K series Stuck

Posted on March 20, 2013 at 09:57 AM.

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Zach Lowe over at Grantland has the most in-depth look anyone's had so far at the kind of data that's being churned out by STATS, LLC's SportVU system. If you weren't aware of it, half the teams in the league (New York, Orlando, Boston, Washington, Milwaukee, Toronto, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Minnesota, Golden State, Houston, San Antonio, and Phoenix) have installed the SportVU camera system at a cost of about $100,000. It tracks every player's position on the floor, as well as the ball, 25 times a second. It creates scads and scads of data, but what the Raptors have done with it is create a program that can turn all that data into animations that show not only where the players on the court are, but also provides an idealized version of the defense the Raptors should be playing on any given possession based on the opposing players' tendencies.

Here's an animation of a possession from a game against the New York Knicks from February 22:

As Lowe explains:

[T]hose clear circles that sort of follow the Toronto players around and have the same jersey numbers ... are ghost players, and they are doing what Toronto's coaching staff and analytics team believe the players should have done on this play � and on every other Toronto play the cameras have recorded. The system has factored in Toronto's actual scheme and the expected point value of every possession as play evolves. The team could use that expected value system to build an "ideal" NBA defense irrespective of the Toronto scheme.

Now, in the real world, there's an entire war being waged between coaches�and in some cases GMs and players�who feel they know how the game should be played based on what they've always done and analytics guys who think there's a better way.

But we don't really care about that part of the argument because when you're playing NBA 2K, it's ALL just numbers, really, deep down. The data that teams collect from SportVU is closely guarded, and obviously the system is expensive, but consider what NBA 2K could be with this kind of analytical power at its fingertips. Imagine smarter defenders who would help as well as they should, who would understand rotations and court-spacing.

If 2K Sports could get access to this kind of data, it could take a huge step towards not only simulating the game as it's played in the NBA, but even taking a step BEYOND how the game is played to a better kind of basketball. That's truly an exciting possibility.

I highly recommend checking out Lowe's entire article.

Comments

# 1 tjb_32 @ Mar 20

GET IT DONE!

# 2 chi_hawks @ Mar 20

Great write up! The Grandland article by Zach Lowe is a great read.

# 3 DGMikeBarker @ Mar 20

I seen this on the Grantland channel and was wonder why only half of the league uses the analytic's team. Especially, why not my Hawks? Eventually every NBA team will use it because of its success. You can already see teams trade and draft logic change from the research. This should also be excellent for 2k's Franchise and MyTeam modes were you build teams.

# 4 KillerHog471 @ Mar 20

Yeah there is a video on Grantland's website that using SportVU cameras the people at Sports LLC found that centers and power forwards accelerate and run more often than 1,2, and 3s. So instead of people running around with PG's bombing up threes they should make it so the Centers and PF's run and play help defense.

# 5 jsquigg @ Mar 20

I don't want to be too much of a downer, but it isn't worth it to implement something if it isn't done right. And while the Raptors certainly sound "innovative," last I checked this system isn't helping them make the playoffs.
I'm all for implementing this data into 2k, but sometimes that can lead to more problems. If a player shoots 44% from three overall, the game should be able to have separate ratings for things like open three and contested three. I think NBA Live tried this and there was no distinction which led to gamers trolling certain hot spots that were high percentage regardless of defense.
If it's balanced, do it, but there should be some acknowledgement of where common sense overrides the numbers.

# 6 tril @ Mar 21

@jsquig 2k does have code implemented that distinguished from and open 3 verses a contested 3. that's all determined by the defender. I believe they highlighted this last feature in last years version.

This is interesting. would make more sense to implement this in a text based sim. IF they implement this in a future NBA 2k game, then that would truly become a true sim. i could see teams even using a 2k version to use as a teaching tool for players to illustrate how plays should be run etc.