Would you like to know how visual analytics could help basketball teams improve their performance? This paper provides the answer.

A tool, BKViz, is presented that combines multiple interactive visualization methods to allow team analysts, coaches, and players to analyze individual basketball games.

A set of five sections in the tool provide access to different levels of analysis, from the most general game outline visualization to the most detailed statistically focused analysis. Links to game video portions are automatically generated to illustrate play-by-play data and let users see what actually happened in the game.

Two approaches have been followed to evaluate BKViz. First, three case studies are presented in which real data from National Basketball Association (NBA) games is analyzed and the usefulness of the visualizations is demonstrated. The teams’ style of play is made apparent, with visualizations clearly reflecting the shooting and defensive patterns, game pace, individual player performance, or player interactions, among other interesting issues. The second approach to evaluation consists of showing the tool to expert basketball team staff and collecting their opinions.

Not being a technological or scientific breakthrough, BKViz is a powerful tool with the potential to be useful, save time, and provide a deeper insight into basketball games than current analysis practices. Put in the words of the authors, “it is the combination of [the features and visualizations proposed] in the same system that gives value to the tool.”