Eric Gordon of the Sophomore team shoots against DeJuan Blair of the Rookie team during the first half of the Rookie Challenge and Youth Jam on the 2010 NBA All-Star Weekend. Could Ballogy help teams identify much younger talent? (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)
The San Antonio Spurs will soon be tracking the development of youth basketball players using testing and analytics platform Ballogy. The Spurs’ Sports Academy will offer Ballogy testing to youth players at camps, clinics, and tournaments.
Participants at those events will be able to go through a variety of shooting tests and drills, with live feedback given by Ballogy-certified coaches. Performance scores will then be stored in Ballogy’s database—accessible via an app available on iOS and Android. Athletes can create their profiles by adding combine measurements such as height, wingspan, vertical leap, and lane agility.
Junior high and high school basketball elites will have the opportunity to run through Ballogy’s tests over two camps at the end of June and middle of July. A much larger contingent of players, from grades 2 through 12, will be able to undergo the tests from Jul. 5 to Jul. 8, when the Spurs hold their third annual National Basketball Tournament. That event will feature more than 400 teams, meaning thousands more players could soon be added to the Ballogy system.
SportTechie Takeaway
Youth testing, and the tracking of developing players, has huge potential to help colleges and pro teams identify talent early on. That Ballogy has the endorsement of the San Antonio Spurs, considered among the NBA’s most successful franchises, gives it the credibility to expand to other arenas and potentially become the de facto performance testing method at the youth level.
