His name is Jay Wessel, and he gave a wonderfully candid interview last month to Mass High Tech, an underrated tech industry newsweekly in the New England area. Examples below:
MHT: Any tech projects coming from the NBA that you are working on?
WESSEL: One thing that the league (wants) is getting all of the arenas and the league central office together on a fiber network, mostly for the purpose of sharing video in real time during all the different games on a given night.
MHT: What's the Celtics' annual technology budget?
WESSEL: The budget tends to be, without including (staff) salaries, in the $200,000 to $300,000 range.
MHT: What's the most unique technology the team uses?
WESSEL: We use a lot of digital video and databases, so that at any point in
time, at any spot in the world, somebody on our staff can pull up video clips of
just about anything you can imagine in the NBA. If you want to see Paul Pierce
taking jumpshots between 15 feet and 20 feet from the left side of the court,
you can do that. (You can) see only the ones he made, only the ones he missed,
or only the ones he took within a certain quarter against certain opponents.
Danny Ainge (executive director of basketball operations) uses it to look at
players. We also give it to players. So if we know Paul Pierce has to guard --
pick a name -- tomorrow, we say, 'All right, Paul, here's what you've got to
worry about from him; just look at these plays because this is where he's most
dangerous.'"
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