When you see a coach scribbling plays on a whiteboard during a pro basketball game on TV, you may wonder why he doesn’t just show his players a video on an interactive whiteboard touchscreen. The answer is simple enough - the NBA competition committee doesn’t allow the use of video on the sidelines, according to an article in the LA Times. It’s definitely a far cry from commentators liberally using telestrators on NFL telecasts, although you could argue that networks have a much greater incentive to invest and depend on the technology than pro sports leagues currently do. However, the League and Hewlett-Packard are apparently ready to partner up on widely-accessible technology that enables teams to make mid-game adjustments just like they do in between games or quarters in the locker room or on the team bus.
So what does all this mean for basketball in general? First off, expect custom whiteboards to go the way of analog TVs and dinosaurs, at least on NBA sidelines. Tablet PCs with styluses are just as portable as a regular tablet-sized whiteboard, and they offer coaches the ability to show every element necessary to running a successful play, from moving as a team to moving as individuals. More specifically, video enables players to visualize realistic renderings of plays from actual game action, and coaches can interact with the images to show the team what it needs to do in any number of situations. You could even imagine coaches filming plays as they’re run in practice, then saving them and showing them to their teams during a timeout to refresh their memories before a crucial possession in a big game.
Besides all that, computers can store entire libraries of statistics that teach players about their own tendencies and the tendencies of their opponents. So if you show your point guard that his counterpart on the other team likes to dribble and drive to the basket with the right hand 3 out of every 4 times down court, maybe he can cheat and force his man to the left hand. We see it in baseball all the time with the focus on individual pitcher and hitter matchups, and results that repeat themselves over tens and even hundreds of iterations often indicate physical and psychological traits that teams can use to their advantage, even in the middle of the game. According to the article, we won’t see teams using sideline interactive whiteboard technology this year, but look for benches to go digital in the not-too-distant future.
Posted by Taeho Lim
