By Alan Snel
LVSportsBiz.com
Courtside fans at the NBA Summer League usually include the likes of Lakers superstar LeBron James, unbeaten boxer/money collector Floyd Mayweather and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, but during Monday’s Mavericks-Kings game there was an anonymous-looking fella wearing a HyperX esports cap named Thomas Stewart.
Stewart was no fan. On his lap sat an expensive piece of technology, a camera wrapped in an inch of hard foam to protect basketball players who might leave the court and collide with the video cam being operated by the cameraman.
Stewart was collecting video footage of NBA Summer League games to replicate the look of cell photo videos taken by pro basketball fans sitting courtside at NBA games. Stewart’s up-close looks at the game action were being transferred to an NBA tech staffer and his laptop tucked behind a display board on the other end of Thomas & Mack Center arena.
The courtside camera footage is just one element of new technology and broadcast production initiatives being tested by the NBA, which uses the Summer League at Thomas & Mack and Cox Pavilion as a high-tech laboratory to improve the way fans consume the product.
The “mad scientist” overseeing all the new cameras, data-collecting sensors and tech toys is Stephen Hellmuth, NBA executive vice president for media operations and technology.
The NBA Summer League, now in its 15th year, has become a testing ground for the association to experiment with technological advances from the referees’ whistles stopping game clocks to overhead cameras capturing new visual perspectives for TV and cell phone broadcasts.
“Where else can you get the reps? Every sport would love to have 83 games in one place to experiment on technology,” Hellmuth said Monday as he showed LVSportsBiz.com the various new cameras. “We can try things that fail and pick them up and try again the next year.”
Not only is the NBA checking out the broadcast uses for the courtside LapCam, the NBA has also installed two robotic cameras about 15 rows off the court in the arena’s bottom bowl to specialize in capturing action from the court’s baseline to the foul line. Plus, the NBA has enhanced last year’s four-cable SkyCam into a “SpyderCam” that has improved maneuverability thanks to a more high-powered trolley system.
Here’s a summary of the NBA broadcast tech testing:
The NBA is also testing basketball rim sensors that can analyze the exact moment when a basketball clears the plane of the rim on a made shot for the purpose of time management at the end of games, Hellmuth said.
The intel sensors mounted on a bar connected to the 24-second clock above the backboard are also recording the arc and direction of shots to provide valuable shot quality data to players and coaches. John Carter, CEO of Huntsville, Alabama-based Noah Basketball, which makes the sensors, showed LVSportsBiz.com the technology tracking the rim data.
“We know precisely where the basketball is, where the rim, where the backboard is in 3D space,” Carter explained during a game today.
Hellmuth, the NBA’s media ops and tech chief, works closely with the league’s basketball operations staffers because they are trying to fine-tune literally tenths of a second when players put up shots at the rim at the end of games and periods.
The sensors will help game workers who handle the 24-second possession clock to know whether a basketball shot hits the rim or not, which would allow the game staffer to know whether there is a 24-second clock violation.
Hellmuth said the sensors will also help the NBA stop the clock in the last minute of the first three periods and the last two minutes of the fourth period and overtime when a player makes a shot. Instead of a worker stopping the clock when a shot is made and passes through the rim net at the end of a quarter, the sensors will automatically stop the clock when the basketball clears the plane of rim during a successful shot, Hellmuth explained.
That difference between a worker and a sensor stopping the clock after a made shot could be two-tenths of a second — a time differential that potentially could change the course of a game, he noted.
“I like to say an NBA game is approximately 48 minutes long with human beings starting and stopping the clock,” Hellmuth half-joked. “This sensor is a better way of doing things.”
Hellmuth projected that the rim sensor technology could be implemented for the 2020-21 NBA season.
The sensors will also enhance the way fans can view shot charts, he said. Now, it’s an Xs and Os shot chart showing made and missed shots. Hellmuth envisions rainbows of images showing the shots’ arcs and angles.
“I want to show something dynamic and better,” Hellmuth said of the shot chart graphics.
There’s more to come later this week. Hellmuth said he will be working on testing a “Jitajib” Cam that will be connected to the center hung scoreboard at Thomas & Mack Center.
And he’s also working on a cable-held camera nicknamed a “SupraCam” that will be on two cables instead of the four used for the SpyderCam and it will allow the camera to focus on a player running up and down the court.
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After the Summer League sold out 17,500 both Day 1 Friday and Day 2 Saturday attendance hit 14,263 Sunday. It looks like the NBA Summer League should crack the 140,000 level for attendance this year and set a record.
There’s always a retired star, broadcaster or NBA coach strolling around the Summer League. LVSportsBiz.com saw former Lakers star Kobe Bryant hitting the Thomas & Mack floor through a tunnel Monday.
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