NBA Commissioner Adam Silver says the league plans to use AI-assisted technology to automate objective calls.
Silver was asked on “The Pat McAfee Show” what would be done to mitigate flopping in the league. By NBA standards, flopping is “an attempt to either fool referees into calling undeserved fouls or fool fans into thinking the referees missed a foul call by exaggerating the effect of contact with an opposing player.”
Silver notes distinctions among selling a flop, an exaggeration, and “a true flop.” Nonetheless, he says the league plans to roll out an AI-powered system with cameras around the court that will make instant, objective calls, allowing referees to focus on more difficult ones. He also said the system would mirror the Hawk-Eye system, which is a technology used in tennis to determine if the ball is in or out using multiple cameras, per Topend Sports.
“We’re going to move to a system where that whole category of calls will be automatic where you know it’s going to be you know
Laker ball, Knicks ball, whatever it is… Those calls will be done by an AI automated system with cameras lined around the court, and it’ll take all those so-called objective calls out of the hands of the referees. It’ll be instantaneous. This will be automatic. Just play on,” Silver said on “The Pat McAfee Show.”
“You won’t have to deal with challenges on those calls, but it’ll also allow the officials on the more difficult subjective calls to give their full attention to those,” he continued. “There’s often contact on every play. It doesn’t mean there’s a foul. And they’re trying to measure sort of whether that contact is impeding the player, how hard that contact is. It’s something that can’t just be done on camera. They’re actually feeling the contact because they’re there on the floor with the players. So anyway, I think there is a technology that will really be helpful here.”
