Imagine creating a heat map that reveals exactly where on the court a basketball team, or specific player, is most likely to have the best luck at making a shot! That's exactly what you can accomplish by mapping the court and applying some interesting data to the analysis.

Here’s an interesting story from the Slate and a very cool use of a geographic visualization that looks at the spatial patterns and distribution of the 3 basketball shot – thanks to Brad Shannon of FOCO for the tip off on this one! Using data comprised of “made” basketball shots, this effort maps the spatial distribution of shots on the basketball court, showing off very clearly the hot spots where athletes have the best chances of making a shot. Mapping the basketball court, the project shows off just where most shots are made and what’s even cooler is when you look at the spatial distribution of points made by an individual player!

This actually takes me back about 8 years ago when I was a little league baseball coach in NW Florida. We used a similar method of tracking the hits of players in tournaments to show us all the hotspots for each player and clearly identify where specific players were most likely to hit. OF note, that year our team went as far as they possibly could in league play, winning out over all of NorthWest Florida in competitive little league play! Indeed technology can make a difference…

See the article – What Geography Can Teach Us About Basketball

Source: blog.gisuser.com via Glenn on Pinterest