The Toronto Raptors are near the end of a historic NBA Finals run. In a series they currently lead 3-2, they’re on the verge of their first ever title. But whatever happens tonight (and possibly on Sunday), the Raptors will soon shift their focus to the next season. In an effort to maintain a stellar roster that has gotten them so far, the franchise will turn to its partnership with IBM for scouting and recruitment insights.
Inside the Raptors’ practice facility, the OVO Athletic Centre, is a data-powered “war room.” The space is filled with interactive touchscreens that pull in data from a number of sources: official NBA league data, internal recruitment and scouting data, and player data. Since 2016, the Raptors have been using this location, and the associated cloud-based platform that supports it, to find and evaluate potential recruits.
On the back end is IBM Sports Insights, a product launched in 2016 that IBM built in tandem with the Raptors. With a data visualization tool that funnels mass quantities of unstructured data types, from video to social media to biometrics, the Raptors front office can capture a more complete view of a player.
The system yields a more complete view of a player that typical box scores might gives. How they fit into a particular system of offense. How they’ll react to a particular style of coaching. Even how to best train an athlete to help them prevent injury. A feature called Tradeoff Analytics helps weigh the pros and cons of talent decisions.
This has surely contributed to the Raptors’ rise in recent seasons, though IBM is careful not to take credit for what could be the team’s first NBA Championship in the franchise’s 24-year history. Farhang Farid, an associate partner in the iX division of IBM who worked with the Raptors on this project, instead touted the Raptors for their willingness to innovate.
“We’re just a small piece of the puzzle and there are a thousand pieces to this puzzle,” he said. “We’re simply proud of being their partners in their journey. The Raptors have one of the most forward thinking front office teams in the NBA.”
IBM has been working with the Canadian basketball team over the past few years. It also supports the franchise’s NBA 2K League team, Raptors Uprising, and its NBA G League team, Raptors 905.
From IBM’s perspective, its tool is meant to make the Raptors more efficient as they work through multi-level processes guiding player management. Previously, much of this was done manually. Now, they are able to easily gain perspective around various data sets ranging from NBA stats, NBA player contract information, and other third-party and internal data.
“They were looking to kind of push the boundaries by creating a war room that helps them bring the data that they deal with on a day-to-day basis together,” Farid said. “They wanted this place to be state of the art, to help them position Toronto as a team and a city that focuses on player development and training and leverages all the tools and technologies that they can to improve their performance.”
IBM’s long-term vision is to eventually extend this platform to other areas of team performance, such as training, coaching, health, and fitness. The goal is to create a single point of entry for the sports organization to look after all aspects of team performance management.
“This is all about winning games and what we’ve done here through IBM Insights Central is to support Raptors management create teams that can win more games and championships,” Farid said.