Hey guys, Garreth Reeder here. I’m writing today about Dynamic DNA in NBA LIVE 10. As you know, Dynamic DNA was in NBA LIVE 09, and really set the bar for the expectations gamers now have for both the type of scouting data we provide, roster/player updates, and our daily update schedule.

Last year we knew we had a good thing going, but for LIVE 10 we obviously wanted to expand on the content. Our partners at Synergy Sports Technology have an insane amount of content per player, and last year’s inclusion of tendencies, streaks, and player DNA was just the tip of the iceberg.

The biggest addition in my mind is the inclusion of real shooting data for every player. On the surface, so what? We all know players’ shooting percentages, right? However, as you can see below, we not only have the base shooting percentage, but the complete breakdown. At a high level, we have the ‘Jump Shooting’, ‘Post Up’, and ‘Finishing at the Basket’ percentages. This allows us to really break down a player.

Of course Dwight has a crazy high FG%, but that doesn’t mean he’s a good jump shooter. These numbers alone are pretty good, but the real meat comes in the jump shooting category. We have the breakdown by range (short/mid-range/3), as well as the situation. Finally we can show how good a player is at pulling up off the dribble, catching and shooting when open, and catching and shooting while contested.  In a first for sports games (as far as I know), the gameplay team has fully integrated the Synergy shooting percentages into the game. As Mike can attest, overhauling the shooting logic in this way wasn’t easy, but we’ve completely thrown away traditional ratings for the most important aspect of the game. Instead of Marcus (sorry man!) making up these ratings for players, we can actually hook into how they really shoot. It completely takes out the bias we tend to have for ‘big name’ players, or guys that are known as shooters. If they don’t bring it in the 2009-10 season, their play in NBA LIVE 10 will reflect that. We even know who the volume shooters are vs. those who don’t have to carry the load, and can adjust accordingly; Brad Miller has a pretty nice 3pt percentage, but he doesn’t put up the same number of shots as a guy like Ray Ray.

The best part is all the data updates every day, so depending on who is lights out in real life this year, expect them to be the new sleeper favorites in NBA LIVE. The nice thing for me as a basketball fan is there is real strategy involved now, and a real advantage to those who know the players and understand how to play. From playing around the office, those who know the players and shoot with them in the right situations and from the right range really start to dominate. Someone like OJ Mayo or Jameer Nelson is just deadly from mid-range (or at least they were last year), so beating my man, taking one or two dribbles, then pulling up with those guys is money. I can safely say the mid-range gameplay in LIVE is back; it’s not all about threes or taking it to the basket. Be sure to check the DNA Scouting Report in the game on a regular basis to know your players as it will be changing all the time. Oh, and don’t worry that if Shaq somehow goes 1 for 1 from three he will be the new Eddie House in the game. We filter out players with too few attempts. Most Centers and Power Forwards in the game have N/A for the majority of the jump shooting percentages.
I recently played the game with Jordan Farmar in Taiwan, and I showed him his DNA Scouting Report. He nodded his head when we went over his Player DNA and Tendencies, but quickly glossed over his detailed shooting percentages. He admittedly had a rough year shooting the ball last year, and LIVE reflects that. He couldn’t argue it obviously, but the beauty of the feature is if he picks it up and takes the starting spot from D. Fish, NBA LIVE will reflect all of it, from the higher shooting percentages, to the lineup change with him in the starting five (even a jersey number change).

In terms of other new content, we’ve got more detail in tendencies. Last year we had drive left/right and post-up tendencies. For LIVE 10, we wanted to add some more detail, and Synergy provided the results after a drive in terms of a player pulling up for the jumper vs. going all the way to the basket. I love the example below for Kobe. For some context, the following excerpt is from an incredible article from The New York Times Magazine written by Michael Lewis. Daryl Morey and the Houston Rockets rely heavily on Synergy for their scouting data.

“Before the game, Battier was given his special package of information… The data essentially broke down the floor into many discrete zones and calculated the odds of Bryant making shots from different places on the court, under different degrees of defensive pressure, in different relationships to other players - how well he scored off screens, off pick-and-rolls, off catch-and-shoots and so on. Battier learns a lot from studying the data on the superstars he is usually assigned to guard. (Kobe) is better at pretty much everything than everyone else, but there are places on the court, and starting points for his shot, that render him less likely to help his team. When he drives to the basket, he is exactly as likely to go to his left as to his right, but when he goes to his left, he is less effective. When he shoots directly after receiving a pass, he is more efficient than when he shoots after dribbling… The ideal outcome, from the Rockets’ statistical point of view, is for Bryant to dribble left and pull up for an 18-foot jump shot; force that to happen often enough and you have to be satisfied with your night. “If he has 40 points on 40 shots, I can live with that,” Battier says. “My job is not to keep him from scoring points but to make him as inefficient as possible.” The court doesn’t have little squares all over it to tell him what percentage Bryant is likely to shoot from any given spot, but it might as well.”

What’s so cool is looking at Kobe’s report in NBA LIVE and seeing some of this first hand. His tendencies are so even it’s tough to find a weakness.

Compare this to Parker who, after driving right, tries to finish at the basket almost 80% of the time. These kinds of tendencies are key to making players play like they do in real life.

Finally we have an initial page in the DNA Scouting Report that shows the tendencies of how a player scores. This helps separate guys like Nelson from Parker, both quick PGs that run the pick and roll, but that score in very different ways. Parker, while a strong jumpshooter, is still most dangerous scoring in the paint, while Jameer is a deadly mid-range threat.

I also wanted to comment on Synergy themselves. You’ve all been told a million times that they are the premier basketball scouting service, and 26 (now 27) NBA teams use them, and blah blah blah. That said, as a basketball fan, the first time you log into their site and look at your favorite player the amount of detail is really incredible. Take a look at the screenshot below. I’ve grabbed part of LeBron’s profile, and you can see on the right how small the scroll bar is. What you see here is literally 1% of all the data we have access to for James. Not only that, but anything you see below in blue is a link to instant video of LeBron in that situation (updated as of last night’s games). I can look at all the plays in which he split a double team for example, and what all the results were. With so much data at our fingertips, the challenge is to use the content that makes the most sense for a basketball game, while properly integrating it into the AI and overall gameplay. This can’t be understated; you can have a million ratings/tendencies/play types for a player in the menus, but if they aren’t properly integrated into the game’s AI it ends up just being fluff. Mike and the gameplay team have put a lot of effort into properly using all the data we get from Synergy so it has a real impact on the way the players play, and therefore gameplay as a whole.

In terms of the data itself, when you see the scope and types of content Synergy collects, it’s clear that there is a lot of manual labor behind it. All of the tendency and DNA data can only be documented by actually watching every play that every player in the NBA participates in. They have over 80 employees that watch every NBA game the night it happens and log every single part of every play. How else can you know that LeBron’s defenders go under the pick and roll 65% of the time on the right side of the court, or that Dwight faces up 34% of the time on the right side of the post? Other websites break down stats, lineups, time of possession, time remaining, etc. to come up with different ways to qualify how players play. At the end of the day however, all this is simply breaking down a box score. What Synergy is able to provide us is real scouting data by actually analyzing video of what happens each and every play from every game. There’s a reason 27 NBA teams use the service: it’s the best out there. I can’t wait to start digging into what we can bring you guys in the coming years. NBA LIVE is back.

* The Dynamic DNA counter is based on a percentage of games played on a particular day and is representative of actual in-game updates.