Gaming Friday: Synergy Sports Technology and Blake Griffin

Wow.

That's my reaction to the mountain of stats that is Synergy Sports Technology.  I'm pretty excited at what this could mean first for the gaming industry and later for basketball in general. (Yeah, I did write that).  You may know them as the engine that's powering the NBA Live 09 and NBA Live 10 games.  

I picked up this read on ESPN - going into detail on the Player DNA of Blake Griffin, Stephen Curry, and Hasheem Thabeet.  Now some of this read isn't exactly news (probably don't need to see DNA to see that Thabeet likes to post up on the block), but when you look at Blake Griffin's DNA, it gets pretty interesting.  He has an isolation percentage of 12 -- pretty surprising for an inside player (compared to 1% of Thabeet).  This read gives us a pretty interesting look into how the Clippers may evolve.  Here's a couple great excerpts: 

• "Blake's proficiency in the post will not only produce a high percentage shots for his team when he goes to work on the block, it will also create open shots for his teammates when players are forced to leave their men to help defend Blake's post-ups."
• Baron Davis, take note: Griffin's numbers indicate that he moves as well off the ball as any big man we've seen in recent years. He recorded a whopping 1.5 points per possession on cuts. The reports says it all, "This indicates that Blake is active, has good hands, and knows how to score the ball attacking the rim. This is a valuable asset that produces easy scores and cause the defense to track yet another offensive threat. Combine a good passing point guard with Blake and his team will burn the defense in this type of offense."
• Griffin will need to spend a lot of time developing his jump shot. He generated only 0.64 points per possession on spot-ups. At Oklahoma, those opportunities accounted for only 2% of his offense, but at the pro level, he can't be an elite power forward without some range.
  
• Griffin is a terrific big man in transition, where he chalked up 1.32 points per possession. The comp here is Brandan Wright, who had similar success on the break at Carolina in 2007-08. If the Clippers can get stops and control the defensive glass (two big ifs), they'll be able to use Griffin to get out of the offensive efficiency cellar -- they finished 30th in the league last season.

Now take this sort of data and expand it to every player across the league and update it in real time all year.  Wow.  I had no idea this had the level of depth it had.  Now I'd love to see this sort of analysis start accompanying the draft.  I'd rather not hear an analyst give my team a grade of a C+ or B-.  I would love to see how a player getting added to my team changes the chemistry and thus our place in the league.  And DNA can do this.  

Lastly, I want to see how changes of DNA during the season will get highlighted.  I'd love to see recaps on who isolates the most, and who's the most effective out of the low post.  And I want to know what a Defensive DNA could be!  Come on guys, bring it on!

Here is Synergy Sports' site.