Advanced Scout: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in NBA Data

Advanced Scout is a PC-based data mining application used by National Basketball Association (NBA)coaching staffs to discover interesting patterns in basketball game data. We describe Advanced Scout software from the perspective of data mining and knowledge discovery. This paper highlights the pre-processing of raw data that the program performs, describes the data mining aspects of the software and how the interpretation of patterns supports the processof knowledge discovery. The underlying technique of attribute focusing asthe basis of the algorithm is also described. The process of pattern interpretation is facilitated by allowing the user to relate patterns to video tape.