Soon after Second Spectrum began providing a few NBA teams with positional data gleaned from optical tracking cameras, the Golden State Warriors realized they needed help making sense of the wealth of new information. During a two-week period of the 2012-13 season, the team noticed a disturbing uptick in how many three-pointers opponents were shooting and sinking. Golden State didn’t know why that was happening, or how to address that.
The Warriors were in their first season working with Palo Alto-based Mocap Analytics, an AI data company that has since been acquired by Sportradar. The team turned to Mocap’s algorithms, which scoured through the tracking metrics and discovered the slight openings the players were leaving in defense.