Samsung creates AI tool for Dutch basketball team at Olympics

Samsung Galaxy has created an AI performance tool to assist the Dutch national men’s 3x3 basketball team at the Paris Olympics.

New to the Olympics, 3x3 is the fastest form of basketball with 10-minute games. There are three players on each team, half a court, one hoop, no timeout and no court-side coach. 

According to Samsung, player fatigue causes shot accuracy to plummet in the last 90 seconds of the game.

Created by Cheil Benelux, 'ShotControl' is an AI-powered sports analytics tool that provides the 3x3 basketball players with detailed information about their performance. 

The tool enables coaches and players to understand from which precise spot on the court they have the greatest accuracy as fatigue sets in during a match.

Tim van der Sijde, managing director of Cheil Benelux, said: "In developing ‘ShotControl’, we wanted to truly help 3x3 basketball and simultaneously showcase Samsung's innovative strength. 

“The innovation had to be developed in such a way that it didn't hinder the players and was intuitive enough for them to use themselves. Technology that continues to provide insights in the long term. Not a one-off. 

“It became a project we worked on for years, bringing together various expertise within our agency. At Cheil, we love to make technology as tangible as possible, and where is that more the case than at the highest level in the Olympic arena?"

'ShotControl' required multiple Samsung Galaxy devices to be Installed in the Dutch National basketball training facilities to capture images and track and map every player’s shot accuracy over multiple weeks of training.

The application builds multiple data sets from the tracking and mapping before converting the data into a dynamic heat map to give players an assessment of who has the best shot accuracy from what court position in the final 90 seconds.

An 80-second film explains the tool and takes a behind-the-scenes look at how it works during a game. It was directed by Bart Breugem through Lamine Ndaye, art directed by Daniel Samama and Ton van Jole, and written by Tim de Waard.

Malcolm Poynton, global chief creative officer at Cheil Worldwide, added: “Cheil continues to lead the industry in mobile innovation and AI, with Cheil Benelux once again designing a ground-breaking solution to improve the performance of Olympic athletes. 

“Pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, the intelligence of Samsung ‘ShotControl’ creates an entirely new kind of digital training partner that’s already changing the game.”

Samsung and Cheil Benelux have previously created 'SmartSuit', which helped the Dutch short-course speed skating team win four medals at the 2018 Pyeonghnag Winter Olympics, and the “FastFrame” analytics tool, which helped Neik Kimminn achieve gold in Tokyo for the Dutch men’s national BMX team.

Gerben van Walt Meijer, marketing manager mobile experiences at Samsung (SEBN), said: “Samsung has a long history with the Olympic Games. It's great to see that we can once again crown our partnership with a third technological development. 

“After ‘SmartSuit’ and ‘FastFrame’, both of which were very successful at the Olympics, we hope to prove once again that innovation can make things possible that seem impossible; in Paris but also important 3x3 tournaments afterwards, such as the European Championship and the World Championship."