Zach Lowe on help defense, camera tracking, analystics

[Sħãlïq™]

Really interesting read on how SportVU is changing basketball. Lowe has to be one of the very best NBA writers out there.

 

 

The future of the NBA, at least in one place, looks like this:

 

 

That's Jason Kidd hitting a 3-pointer off a Carmelo Anthony pick-and-roll in the first quarter of Toronto's February 22 home win over the Knicks; the Knicks are in blue, passing the little yellow ball around, and the Toronto players are colored white. It looks simple, but the process of getting there took a bunch of people, including three Toronto front-office employees, more than a half-decade of work.

 

 

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9068903/the-toronto-raptors-sportvu-cameras-nba-analytical-revolution

Edited March 20, 2013 by Sħãlïq™

[Built Ford Tough]

Lowe isn't "one of the best" he is, undoubtedly, the best.

 

He is the LeBron James of basketball writers. The gap between him and everybody else is colossal.

 

 

I'm really looking forward to seeing the second part of this that he'll be releasing tomorrow. This also gave a lot of insight into the behind the scenes friction of the Raptors. There have been rumblings for a while now that the coaching staff and front office, or, more specifically, Casey and Colangelo, aren't seeing eye-to-eye with each other and have very different ideologies when it comes to this team and this defiinitely brought some of those to light. The Valanciunas section being the most telling, but also the parts about Casey's love for long 2's instead of 3's and things like that. I believe Lowe is going to go into more detail about the discord in between management and coaching in his next piece.

 

But yeah, this is one of the best articles I've read in a long, long time. Not only is it full of fantastic detail and advanced technology, but Lowe does a fantastic job of breaking it down to its fundamental parts that make it easy for anybody to understand, regardless of their analytical experience. Fantastic work.