[Bloomberg] This Machine Knows Shooting Better Than Steph Curry

Os Trigonum · Jun 11, 2016

Haven't seen this posted yet, interesting article.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-08/this-robot-knows-shooting-better-than-steph-curry

This Machine Knows Shooting Better Than Steph Curry

June 8, 2016 — 6:00 AM EDT

In the practice gym for the University of Virginia men’s basketball team, I’m trying to do my best Stephen Curry. The Golden State Warriors guard is the deadliest three-point shooter in the history of the NBA. I am a playground hack. I shoot from all over the court: free throws, 18-footers, three-pointers. After each shot, a robot speaks from a black box attached to a wall. “For-tee-two,” it says, flatly enunciating each syllable. I shoot again. “For-tee-three.”

The gym is empty except for me and my rebounder, John Carter, chief executive of Noah Basketball. His robot is telling me the angle of each shot as it falls from its peak toward the rim using data from a sensor mounted above the backboard. The software knows exactly what's wrong with my shot: I need to heave the ball up higher.

The ideal angle of entry for a basketball shot is 45 degrees, a fact Carter knows from studying millions of shots. He has tracked the shots of grade schoolers, high schoolers, college players, pros in the NBA and WNBA. At the modified tractor shed in north Alabama that serves as Noah’s laboratory, he has built a machine that shoots a basketball with any arc he chooses. The results are always the same. The likelihood that any shot will go through the rim increases as the angle of entry gets steeper until the arc reaches 45 degrees, at which point the probability starts to decline.

It didn't hurt to get a kind of verification from the best shooter on the planet. When Steph Curry used Noah’s tracker in May 2014, at a practice gym outside Portland, Ore., his average arc was nearly ideal—46 degrees. The two-time MVP may add a bit of height to help him shoot over taller players, and Noah's data show that elite players can afford to be slightly above or below the ideal.
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more at the link

Carl Herrera · Jun 11, 2016

Sasha Vujacic?

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[Bloomberg] This Machine Knows Shooting Better Than Steph Curry

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[Bloomberg] This Machine Knows Shooting Better Than Steph Curry

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