JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
For professional basketball players, their jump shot is probably the most important tool in their arsenal - think Stephen Curry, Caitlin Clark, both jump shot superstars. And there's a whole field of trainers devoted to just the art of shooting. But what if the actual basketball itself could relay information about how to shoot better? The answer to that question could lie in a tech company called SportIQ. It just released a smart ball with a sensor that captures metrics like the arc of the shot, release time and makes and misses. Ben Dowsett wrote about it for WIRED this week. He joins us now. Welcome.
BEN DOWSETT: Thanks so much for having me.
SUMMERS: So Ben, in your piece you wrote about this workout with Duncan Robinson, where he was using this smart ball. And Robinson's a player who's known around the league for being a sharpshooter. I'm curious to know. What did he tell you about what he thought about the ball?
DOWSETT: He was really impressed. Duncan Robinson has actually been using this ball for the better part of about five years, which is well over half his career in the NBA at this point. He's used different iterations of the ball, in fact, that have used varying increased versions of the tech as it's developed over the years, and he raves about it. Not only is he really impressed by its various features, particularly its release time feature. And most of all, I think, he enjoys the fact that this ball does not feel any different than any other ball, which was a key topic in my piece and a key area as we move forward here and see if this ball can be a bigger part of NBA play.
SUMMERS: OK, Ben, I know you're not an NBA player, but I've got to ask you. When you were out doing your reporting and writing about this workout, did you have a chance to get the ball in your own hands? Does it feel pretty much the same?
DOWSETT: I did, and I can further that I'm the furthest thing from an NBA player.
SUMMERS: (Laughter).
DOWSETT: I'm an absolutely miserable basketball player. But yes, SIQ did send me one of their - 'cause they produce, also, a consumer ball that uses a slightly different technology than the one that they're currently demoing in the NBA, but they're very close. And I did get a chance to demo that ball for a couple of weeks, actually, ahead of the story. In fact, I still have it. I noticed absolutely no difference from a standard ball.
Now, for their consumer product, their balls are able to track a number of metrics, as you noted. For the NBA, however, they're actually just looking at a simplified version of the ball. Currently, the NBA's investigating using this ball for officiating purposes that - things like out-of-bounds, goaltending - decisions where you may need to know who touched the ball last. So currently, they're isolating solely for touch events. They're using what's called an IMU sensor inside the ball that simply detects whether the ball was touched at any given time or not.
SUMMERS: Ben, any sense of timing as to when we might see a connected basketball, like the one that we're talking about, in more widespread use in the NBA?
DOWSETT: At minimum, it will be another year. There is no chance that ball will be in active NBA games this upcoming season, so that's the '25-'26 season. The NBA has told me that they want to test for at least that full year in their G League, which is their developmental minor league, maybe even a little bit more testing with NBA veteran players because the NBA players association, as I noted in the article, is very, very powerful and also, shall we say, quite persnickety. They have a number of players who will want to be 100% sure that this ball does not have any effect on playability and that it feels exactly the same as the previous ball that they've always been using. So that'll require some significant testing. If I had to guess, I would say the ball likely enters the NBA about either the '26-'27 season or even the one after, the '27-'28 season, once all those approvals and perhaps some collective bargaining with the players association have been walked through.
SUMMERS: Any information about how much these balls cost, which, of course, could give us some information or indication as to whether this might make it further down the line to colleges or high schools or even pickup players?
DOWSETT: I believe that SIQ's consumer ball product that I have is - costs around 100, $120, something in that range. I actually don't think that this connected ball will be an especially large cost for those organizations to foot, even potentially a high school.
SUMMERS: Ben Dowsett wrote about the new smart basketball for WIRED. Ben, thanks so much.
DOWSETT: Thanks for having me, Juana.
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