When you combine sports with technology, you can end up with some serious improvements to the game. The NBA and Stats LLC is rolling out the SportVU motion tracking system, which uses six cameras to collect various types of data for the purpose of statistic tracking.
Every arena, all 30 of them, will have this technology installed during the upcoming 2013-14 basketball season. This will allow the NBA to accurately track the movements of both the players on the court, and the ball. For stat junkies, this means more accurate numbers based on speed, distance, player separation, and ball possession.
The data captured by the cameras and by Stats' software will be used in the NBA GameTime app, by NBA.com, and on NBA TV. Fans can get access to these services to get more detailed numbers from each game throughout the season.
This is not a new system for the NBA, as 15 teams adopted it last season. The big change here is that every team will have it, which creates a more complete database of statistics, and should help fans get a better feel for exactly what is happening in the game.
Source: NBA