Tristan Thompson is expanding his business portfolio. The NBA veteran has been named the chief content officer and lead advisor of TracyAI, which bills itself as the future of sports analysis. Thompson joined TheStreet to discuss how this cutting-edge technology delivers professional-level insights previously available only in NBA locker rooms.
Related: How automation is changing professional sports
Full Video Transcript Below:
TRISTAN THOMPSON: For me, being an athlete and in sports in general, right? We have so many high level analytics and numbers. And, you know, I feel like sports is the only area in the sector that hasn’t really integrated AI technology to the space, especially with the NBA. You know, we’re always so forward thinking and we’re always so ahead of the curve. This is one area where, you know, I feel like it grabbed the bull by its horns and really like integrate AI technology with all sports but also the NBA.
CONWAY GITTENS: So tell me, what do you bring to the table? What’s your contribution?
TRISTAN THOMPSON: Yeah well for me being an NBA player right. What Tracy does is that she basically is of your version of a sports commentator that can give you high level, in-depth, real time analytics, right? So imagine, you know, your ESPN commentator, but with high level analytics that are bigger than just, you know, the nba.com and sites like this. This is she has the information that we use in our locker room when we’re preparing for games, when teams are looking at ways to bolster roster lineups, how areas that guys can improve in, she’s going to provide this information where the retail space can use it, players can use it to improve their games, but also front office and ownership could use to bolster their rosters.
CONWAY GITTENS: So tell me exactly what kind of data are Tracy are using and how would it be? Just so I can understand.
TRISTAN THOMPSON: So so let me give you an example. Right so there’s a category in NBA that we use is called the best crunch time performer. Crunch time is basically the last two minutes left in the game in the fourth quarter. Who are your best crunch time players. And there’s an algorithm and numbers that they take, whether it’s your plus minus, your finishing at the rim, your overall clutch performance times, field goal percentages, and they curate it to create clutch time numbers. Right so for instance, my teammate, Darius Garland. He’s top two best clutch time players in our league. Him and Nikola Jokic right. The reason why is because their field goal percentages are much higher than the rest of the players in the league. But that algorithm is curated to where it makes a category where fans just can’t get that. If you go online to Google and try to search that right. So it’s basically giving our fans and retail space basically another step closer into the Pro locker room.
CONWAY GITTENS: For the person who’s sitting at home who just wants to hang with his boys or hang with his teammates, watch the game and enjoy. As a fan experience, how does Tracy AI enhance the fan experience?
TRISTAN THOMPSON: Yes, it enhances the fan experience by because she’s able. I always think of it like you’re at the barbershop, we’re at the barbershop and we’re having banter and we’re having chatter, but you like one team or you like a player and I like another player, right? You’re going to say my player finishes better. He’s a better. He finishes better rim I think not, right. So we’ll go to Tracy and be like, what makes, for instance, Jalen Brunson such a good finisher around the rim. And she’s going to say he finished at the rim 70% of the time finishing left handed. And his field goal percentage is really high. When he’s on the right side finishing he struggles. He only shoots 30% See those are in-depth analytics where she could give you that information where even helps like our barbershop talk and our banter. Right and that’s why this is the purpose of Tracy is almost to help the everyday consumer have one step closer into our locker room, but also understand the approach that we have as pros when we’re getting ready for a playoff match-up and using numbers and analytics to help try to give our team an advantage.
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