StatsCube was a new data warehouse tool which the NBA released in 2009 for only its franchises. It is currently open to everyone and being known as “nba.com/stats“.
By the 2009-10 season, StatsCube was made available to every team. It provided instantaneous statistical analysis, calculations and produce adjustable notifications and customized reports.
StatsCube had in it every point, rebound, assist, steal, block, turnover, missed shot, foul and substitution since the 1996-97 season, when play-by-play data first started being tracked courtside. The point in the game when each occurred, and what players were on the floor at the time, is recorded. Best of all, StatsCube can slice and dice the data so teams can analyze it instantaneously.
Say a team’s power forward grabs only X rebounds per minute. Is the team better when he’s on the floor? What players shoot the best in the last three minutes of a close game? Does a center block as many shots after he’s picked up his fourth foul as he does when he has fewer than four?
With a little bit of training, StatsCube can answer all of those questions within seconds. The data always has been available to teams, but they’ve never before been able to access it so quickly and easily with StatsCube.
What’s Next? During Game 4 of the 2009 Finals, the NBA did a demo of a system in development that tracks player and ball movement through the use of six HD cameras placed around the arena. This technology, called SportVu, gives the precise location of everyone on the floor so that the play that is run, all of the ball touches, and the positioning for anybody on the court in terms of x,y coordinates is a matter of few clicks. Even the trajectory of the ball as it went to the basket will be available.