Inderpal Bhandari grew up in Calcutta, where the kids play cricket, not basketball. But today, the IBM researcher has become an NBA superstar by transforming the way coaches prep for games.
Bhandari's brainchild is a data-mining application called Advanced Scout that works like a coach's Magic Eight Ball. Ask the software a question - any question - and an answer appears from the murky depths of raw statistics. Queries can be general, such as "Under what circumstances do the Chicago Bulls outscore the New York Knicks?" The program cooks up an answer by mining for patterns in mountains of play-by-play data. On January 21, for example, the Bulls beat the Knicks by one point. But the Bulls outscored the Knicks by 23 points when Brown, Jordan, Pippen, Kukoc, Oakley, and Ewing were on the floor. Coaches can then view CD-ROM videoclips to determine why the combination proved so deadly. Turns out, the key factor was the Bulls' smaller, quicker lineup, with Brown at point guard and Kukoc at power forward.
In 1995, two NBA teams used Advanced Scout. By the end of this season, 18 teams were using it, and the rest now say they intend to incorporate it into their training routine. (IBM is an NBA sponsor, so coaches get the software free.) "It's hard to just look at a statistic and understand why it's important," says Sacramento Kings video coordinator Chris Marek. "Advanced Scout lets us see specifically why we had an advantage or why we were at a disadvantage."
Bhandari's software has also become a source of entertainment for fans. "Beyond the Box Score" on the NBA homepage makes predictions about upcoming games based on Advanced Scout data. He's also developing a simplified version of the program for television announcers. From there, he plans to move onto the ice - IBM is working with the NHL to design a version of Advanced Scout for hockey.Ultimately, Bhandari wants to bring data-mining to the masses. "The underlying algorithm is generic," he says. "It's applicable to other domains, such as manufacturing, insurance, or retail companies."
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