5

In NBA there are a lot of available stats:

  • Points
  • Rebounds (def/off)
  • Assist
  • Blocks
  • Steals
  • % of free throw/2p/3p
  • Minutes played

and maybe many more that I do not remember.

How does all the stats collected? There are a kind of software that register those info or are collected by human or what else?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

At every game, there are two groups of two people who are in charge of collecting these stats. One person in each group keeps an eye on the game and tells the other person what events to mark down. The other person has a computer tablet with which they mark these things down--so player A just got a rebound...player B just attempted a shot and missed, etc. The referee's whistle actually activates the devices to know when to start and stop the game clock.

The information input to these tablets is sent to the official scorer and any calculations are automated (such as field goal percentage). The reason there are two teams doing this is for times where one person may miss something or the two groups' info doesn't match. In those cases, they can use a DVR to replay the event in question.

For newer, more advanced statistics, this is pretty cool: http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/player/ Six cameras are set up to continuously track every movement and output some interesting stuff.

Improve this answer
3
  • Do you know anything else about this system? I recently saw a couple of articles. (This: graphics.latimes.com/kobe-every-shot-ever and this: fivethirtyeight.com/features/stephen-curry-is-the-revolution ). I was amazed by the way they even save the location of the shot (like X,Y coordinates) and even the location of the closest defender. Do you know what type of software do they use? I would like to see at least a "how to" or a video of an application like they use. I am curious.
    – Ash
    Apr 15, 2016 at 12:33
  • 1
    @GeekDunkman I don't know a whole lot about details of how the tracking stats work, but SportVU is the company that does the work for the NBA: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SportVU. If you're interested in this kind of stuff, I found this to be pretty cool: sporttechie.com/2015/09/29/… even though it's baseball, it has some similarities although more advanced.
    – Dr.DrfbagIII
    Apr 15, 2016 at 14:45
  • thanks, I searched for SportVU, and found youtube videos. Very interesting, the level of technology used in sports. Unbelievable.
    – Ash
    Apr 18, 2016 at 11:30

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.