Our Athletes Voice series gives athletes a forum to talk about how technology has impacted their careers and their lives away from the games. This week, Brooklyn Nets shooting guard Joe Harris chats about his recent investment in HomeCourt and the technologies that have helped him become one of the NBA’s best sharpshooters.
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Brooklyn Nets guard Joe Harris has been in the NBA since 2014 and carved out a career by sinking 3-pointers. His 42.7 shooting percentage from beyond the arc is the 11th best mark in league history and ranks fourth among active players, trailing only Seth Curry, Steph Curry and Kyle Korver. Last February, Harris won the 3-point shooting contest during All-Star weekend.
Last winter, Harris began incorporating the iOS basketball shooting app HomeCourt into his training. And last week at the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, he was announced as an investor in HomeCourt’s $8.5 million Series A funding round along with a half-dozen current and former professional players, including eight-time All-Star Steve Nash. As part of the NBA and HomeCourt’s official partnership, Harris and Nash and other players will appear in training videos on the app.
A Slam Dunk…
“I invested in it because I was a user of it, first and foremost. I run a youth camp every year and I saw the impact it had on the kids. It just blew me away to think about the spectrum that this covers—you have kids that are seven, eight years old using it, but then I use it almost every day when I’m doing shooting workouts.
“In one case you’re growing the game, you’re learning, you’re enjoying it, but then this technology is sophisticated enough where college teams and NBA players are using it to train. And it’s not a hoax, everybody really is using HomeCourt because the AI and technology are as good as anything I’ve seen since I’ve been playing.”
On Mobile Training…
“It’s amazing to me that [HomeCourt] picks it all up on the phone. I’ll take my phone and pop it up against the baseline when I’m shooting in Brooklyn. And when the kids were using it at the camp, they had their iPads all lined up. As long as you have a phone, it’s accessible—and it’s reasonably priced. A lot of the technology that’s out there right now that measures the analytics and data is so expensive and difficult to install. And this, you can take it anywhere. Kids are using it in their backyards. The opportunities with it are sort-of endless.”
Growing Up…
“I think it’s really going to get youth players engaged and want to train, because it’s fun to use. I think about myself as a kid: I would be in the gym shooting around and I’d be keeping track of my makes and misses when I was shooting. If I could have had something like this, where I had tangible evidence to back up what I might be feeling when I’m shooting … I could just see it. I could consistently go to it and be like, ‘Alright, how consistent am I? Am I shooting flat? Am I shooting with too much arc? Am I moving fast enough?’ It’s all these different things that are going to help you become a better player, but now it’s like having your own coach to help you out.”
“It’s really going to get youth players engaged and want to train, because it’s fun to use. I think about myself as a kid: I would be in the gym shooting around and I’d be keeping track of my makes and misses.”
The Videos I Made…
“Basically, it’s some of the drills I did at my camp with my kids, and that I do on my own. HomeCourt filmed me doing them, walking through them, talking about the proper mechanics, the footwork, what numbers you should be shooting for, how quickly you should be going through it. Just a whole bunch of different stuff. And now kids can go on there, they can watch me do it and explain it, and they can do it themselves and even compare their stats to mine, which is pretty sweet.”
Inspired by…
“This is the first [investment] that I got involved with. My buddy Matthew Dellavedova, [the point guard for the Cavaliers and an investor in HomeCourt], he’s pretty savvy in the VC space, especially with tech stuff. When I was initially talking to him about this, this was one of the first opportunities where there was actual synergy and a connection to it. There’s some things where you’re going on gut feeling, you’re like, ‘Oh this is really cool’ or, ‘This could be revolutionary.’ But it’s another thing to be like, ‘Alright, this is something that I love and would have actually used.’
“I could see the impact that it could have on the game. Even the data alone that it’s going to be able to collect is amazing. It’s definitely one of those things where it doesn’t take someone super experienced in that space to see the magnitude that this might have. And I’m just excited to be a part of all of it.”
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Future Business…
“I’ve had a number of different opportunities, but if I’m unfamiliar with it, I don’t want to just invest. I’m one of those people who does due diligence on everything. I almost get analysis paralysis and overanalyze it. With HomeCourt, I was way more gung-ho to be a part of it because I had been using it.”
Kinexon and Wearables…
All the data and analytics that people use…we track everything [at the Brooklyn Nets]. We use wearables, such as Kinexon [a player-tracking technology that measures metrics such as load and movement]. I’m sure a lot of teams use it; we’ve been using it for a while. Our sports-performance team uses it all the time to dictate how practices are going to be. We have a chip that gets put in the back of our shirts and we pretty much wear them all the time, except for games.”
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Read more in our ongoing Athletes Voice series…
- NHL’s Theo Fleury: ‘I’m Involved in the Biggest Epidemic on the Planet’
- Tim Anselimo Survived a Mass Shooting to Return to the NBA 2K League
- Chris Geiler Believes Data Can Save Lives in Skydiving
- Joshua Dobbs Balances Pro Football Career with Aerospace Aspirations
- Kai Lenny Wants to Protect the Monster Waves He Rides
- Meghan O’Leary Went From Google Search to Olympian in Six Years
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