Rise of the machines: Coaches vs Data Analysts?

Tarek Kamil predicts that technologists will one day be just as important to a basketball team's on-court success as coaches are; they will be determining in-game strategy and making sideline calls themselves.

More reports from Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

Yahoo Sports, By Dan Devine, Mar 5, 2011

Rise of the machines: Will coaches cede control to data analysts?

Basketball coach Tarek Kamil predicts that technologists will one day be just as important to a basketball team's on-court success as coaches are. Not only that, he says, they'll actually be determining in-game strategy and making sideline calls themselves.

And as he sees it, that day's coming sooner than you think. During a presentation on the second day of the 2011 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Kamil said he figures it'll arrive within the next 20 years.

Analysts will pore over mountains of data mined from an array of individual player snapshots and game situations to arrive at evidence-based conclusions, according to Kamil, executive director of online strategies for InfoMotion Sports and founder of the popular online sports simulation site WhatIfSports.com. Those conclusions will form the basis for the kind of critical decisions that frequently mean the difference between winning and losing.

Kamil forwarded this idea during a presentation promoting InfoMotion's 94Fifty technology, which is built on a pretty basic premise - if you measure the motion of the basketball as a player handles it, you can get a lot of information about the player doing the handling. The system uses sensor arrays embedded into basketballs to collect a variety of data about how the ball moves when it's dribbled, shot or passed. From there, the system employs advanced algorithms to turn the information into a highly detailed player assessment.

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Baseball Analytics Panel blog

The ruggedly handsome Rob Neyer moderates a great cross section of analytical minds including Tom Tippett and scout John Bohringer. John is one of the more statistically minded scouts in the game, so I'm interested in his perspective on the subject.
... To go to more intrusive data collection (chips on gloves), would have to be collectively bargained.
Jonah Keri is talking about inefficiencies in baseball today. Fewer inefficiencies today, since all teams employ analytics. Rays are now looking at injury prevention.
Update: John notes that the inefficiencies last a short period of time. Tom thinks the inefficiencies are greater than 2%.