Stats Perform has announced a deal extension with the NBA’s Orlando Magic for the use of AutoStats, its AI-enhanced body recognition technology.
AutoStats leverages computer vision and AI-enhanced body recognition technology to generate comprehensive basketball tracking data directly from broadcast video. The Magic became the first NBA team to use AutoStats in 2019.
The technology uses video and computer vision to identify player position and granular movements across the entirety of the court without the need for in-venue hardware. The insights produced give teams a more robust approach to evaluating incoming college players.
Jeff Weltman, President of Basketball Operations for the Orlando Magic, commented: “Before AutoStats, we were reliant on college box score and play-by-play data for player evaluation, which only provides a small slice of a player’s overall attributes and playing style.
“Tracking data has become the gold standard of NBA analysis and having access to AutoStats’ college tracking data has allowed us to bring our college scouting process up to the same depth of analysis as we have at the NBA level.
“Being able to back our scouting and prospecting with real data from AutoStats has given us a huge advantage these past two seasons and provided important insights during the recent 2020 NBA Draft.”
By making the data interpretable and providing detailed player descriptions, the Magic can highlight key attributes to determine any given player’s strengths and weaknesses, allowing the team’s in-house analytics team to predict the draft value each player’s talent warrants. It can also be used to go back in time to analyze an NBA player’s college performance.
Steve Xeller, Chief Revenue Officer at Stats Perform, added: “The Orlando Magic have been the ideal partner for Stats Perform as we bring to market a new depth of college data and insight that has never been available before.
“AutoStats is the future of player tracking, and it is important that we work with innovative teams like the Magic that embrace data and technology to create more informed data-driven decisions.
“Working with the Magic’s premier analytics team, we have generated player dashboards with exciting insights on the next generation of NBA stars, providing deeper information for the draft and recruiting process. We look forward to continuing this exciting partnership with the team.”