History of Golden State Warriors Success in the NBA

The world is changing in every aspect compared to how it was lived a decade ago. Fewer and fewer people take daily strolls in the park and hang out in social media communities instead, businesses have less need for actual, physical stalls to reach their consumers, and talking to friends and family has turned into an ordeal that doesn't require much speaking. One aspect of the world hugely affected by this swelling in technological advancements in sports.

The Game

Sports is famous all throughout the world. According to the World Atlas, Soccer is followed by an estimate of over 4 billion fans globally, Cricket is followed by 2.5 billion people, Field Hockey has two billion fans, Tennis has another billion, and Volleyball, Table Tennis, and Basketball all barely reach another billion. Sports is one of the biggest industries in the whole world. When the Moneyball showed up in theaters in 2011, it must've felt farfetched for traditional and conservative sports fans to see how an elite group be beaten by a bunch of one-trick ponies stitched together to form a team that caters to just a few skills.

Now, fast-forward to 2019, no longer farfetched, a Toronto Raptors team in the NBA is leading against the defending champs, the Golden State Warriors who have four all-star caliber players on their team. Math-haters and number bullies, you're all going to hate this but: Sports has become a number's game. Looking at the image of sports so far, people might imagine buff bodies ramming at each other, blood and sweat in the air, living on the last seconds of every quarter looking to take the game-winning field goal attempt-- and all that is reasonable. However, beyond all that, the moving bodies, the competition, is a strategy based on data, born from data, and conceived by data.

Cameras now monitor the movement of athletes and extract data from their motion. Player equipment like shoes, jerseys, helmets, and other accessories are fielded with supervisory technology to provide real-time information about bodily functions. The data borne from all this is assessed by analysts, number crunchers, math geniuses to provide the optimal activity for athletic improvement.

In the context of real competition, IDTech, a blog site that provides a platform for innovative writing, explained that while the Golden State Warriors are struggling against the opposition this year due to the injury of elite key player Kevin Durant, the franchise has risen to the NBA Finals for the fifth straight time-- a feat never achieved since Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics did it in the 60s-- and have won two out of four bouts so far, since the series against the Raptors isn't over yet, with both victories coming off of matchups against the great LeBron James.

The secret to their success: Numbers. As Kirk Lacob, son of the Warriors franchise owner was named Assistant General Manager for the Sta. Cruz Warriors, the Warriors' counterpart in the G-League, he immediately jumped into data analytics and statistics to monitor player improvement. It was the initial movement for the Warriors franchise to ease into the utilization of data analytics.

Lacob's efforts proved to be effective and propelled the Santa Cruz squad into the Finals twice. With the success of data analytics in the G-League stage, the NBA persona, the Golden State Warriors were quick to adapt it, giving Lacob a job in the Warriors front office. Since joining the Golden State staff, there has been a drastic change in the way the Warriors have played. From an underwhelming 23-43 record in 2011, it grew to a 47-35 improvement. It kept on improving as they managed to tally 51-31 record in 2013. In 2014, the Golden State Warriors finally won it all in the NBA. In 2015, while they lost to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, blowing a 3-1 lead in the biggest stage of all, they broke an all-time record set by none other than Michael Jordan himself and the Chicago Bulls. The Bulls' 72-10 record was broken by the Stephen Curry-led Warriors that set the new all-time record at 73-9.

To this day, the Warriors are still data crunchers, making necessary adjustments according to a system called the Estimated Profession Value or EPV, a system used to track the player's improvement on the court.

And it doesn't stop in the NBA. For years, umpire calls have been the subject of scrutiny and with the introduction of the challenge system in 2014, umpire mistakes may finally be given more thorough reviews. For tennis, a mechanism for a line review system was launched to further ease tough calls.

The Players

Athlete training has also been affected by the technological revolution. With technology like the EPV, systems that monitor strengths and weaknesses, more and more athletes are given the chance to capitalize on what they statistically do best. For one, the EPV will track which parts of the court certain athletes best shoot from, knowing that, coaches are given the chance to highlight those strengths by designing plays that will put their best people on the best positions to score.

In training, virtual reality also proves to be one of the biggest assets to teams. Imagine being put on a digital replica of an actual game to have quarterbacks practice their passes, or a tennis player strengthening their backhand, or even baseball hitters practicing their swing to get more homers without fear of being injured. More so than training, athletes are also provided with equipment that will help them avoid injury. In the NFL, it has been found that traditional helmets provide minimum protection from scary brain damage. To provide a solution to this, smart helmets were introduced. It's a helmet armed with magnets and sensors to help detect impact and spread the strength of the collision.

The helmets also have a concussion monitoring system, giving real updates about concussion-related injuries in real-time speeds. Other than football players, this cutting edge technology is also utilized in other sports like snowboarding, skiing, and lacrosse among others. The Sports Industry has definitely felt the sweeping effects of technology and even the fans know that too. With technology, they can watch their favorite teams face off with the competition whenever they want, wherever they go.