Yahoo Finance This smart basketball aims to make anyone a better shooter — even me
I love watching basketball, but I have a terrible shot. If great basketball players can cook – slang for “score however and whenever they want” – I can’t even find the button to turn the oven on.
So when Erik Anderson, CEO of sports tech startup SIQ, claimed he could help improve my shot, I was intrigued. SIQ makes smart basketballs that calculate personalized shooting data. That data, Anderson says, can help anyone be a better shooter.
The Finland, Minnesota-based company, which has been around for about two years, announced in May it had raised $3 million from KB Partners and Tera Ventures. SIQ’s smart basketball is the first to ever be approved by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA). SIQ is also the official basketball provider to Overtime Elite, a recently-launched professional basketball league that prepares top talent for the NBA.
“Our mission is to bring advanced basketball analytics to every player without additional hardware or cameras,” said Anderson. “Just like people use Peloton, Apple Watches, or Whoop – basketball players use SIQ.”
Here's how it works: The ball, which has a sensor at the top, uses machine learning to track shooting. Whenever a player takes a shot, the ball detects and categorizes it, generating 192 data points per shot. You can follow all this data over time on an app, telling you what's working and where you might need to improve.
My skepticism was far less scientific. Dribbling? Bouncing? Throwing? I don't own a single "smart" product that could take that kind of jostling. Smart balls – basketballs and otherwise – have been around for longer than you might think, but getting them right has been tricky. I wanted to see it for myself.
'Getting better every day'
That's how I ended up in a Miami rec center on a sweltering August day, hanging around an SIQ photoshoot. So, I sat on gym bleachers, surrounded by the most gifted teenage athletes I'd ever met. Jai Smith, Bryson Warren, Amen Thompson, and Ausar Thompson are all Overtime Elite stars – all likely or already NBA-bound – and SIQ's newest ambassadors.
As ambassadors, it's not surprising that they all had glowing things to say about the SIQ ball. What was, perhaps, more telling was that they all could genuinely make the case that the ball had made them better shooters.
“I feel like the ball has made me better already, my rotation, how fast I get it off, has definitely gotten better,” said Warren, who at only 17, was the best shooter in Overtime Elite last season.
“You can see how you’re getting better every day,” said Ausar, as his twin brother Amen nodded, calling it a “miracle.” Both are expected to be top picks in the upcoming NBA draft.
'Constantly driving towards improvement'
Miami Heat forward Duncan Robinson is, without a doubt, the most famous ambassador SIQ has right now. (Full disclosure – I'm a huge Miami Heat fan. My dad took a pint-sized me to see Hall of Fame–bound Dwyane Wade when he was a rookie, and I've been hooked since.)
When Robinson and SIQ first linked up in 2021, the player was rethinking how he approached his business interests. Robinson said that, in that process, four-time NBA champion and former teammate Andre Iguodala has been a vital mentor. Iguodala has become one of the NBA's preeminent tech investors, counting Zoom (ZM), Allbirds, and Casper among his most winning investments. It was Iguodala who inspired Robinson to explore tech.
“I love that [tech’s] constantly driving towards improvement,” said Robinson. “It’s innovation, constantly. You’re always looking for a better version of your company, of your technology. In the tech space, as much as any sector, it’s adapt and adjust or die.”
Funnily enough, this is also true of basketball. At every sport’s height, it’s a game of inches, and this is especially true of shooters. Until relatively recently, many would have considered Indiana Pacers legend Reggie Miller to be the greatest shooter ever. However, in 2021, three-point-superstar Stephen Curry passed Miller in on the all-time threes made list. It goes beyond Curry, too – on a season-by-season basis, the expectations for three-point shooters have skyrocketed. Consider this: In Miller's best season, he made 229 threes. For its time, that was remarkable. But each of the last three seasons, Robinson has eclipsed that number. For Robinson and others like him, what was once extraordinary is now expected.
“SIQ was uniquely positioned because … it really fits into what I’m trying to do right now – foster and build relationships with companies, be selective, and try to be in tune with what we’re all trying to achieve,” he said. “This really fits in with what I’m trying to build off the floor.”
Robinson’s perhaps most excited about the teaching and community-building possibilities of SIQ. “I was really attracted to the unique approach that they’ve taken to teaching,” he said. “In theory, this has the potential to be more than just a product, but it’s almost a shooting ecosystem and family that they’re trying to build out.”
Connected balls
The sports-ball industry isn't the easiest target for Anderson and SIQ to take aim at, since it's entrenched and competitive. “We see a lot of new market entrants and a lot of exits, because you have to be good at scale,” said Jake Licht, CEO of Baden Sports, a sports ball company that's well-known for its basketballs.
But it's not necessarily Licht's Baden that Anderson and SIQ are up against. Licht said that there's a big distinction between the market for smart sports balls and traditional balls. SIQ isn’t competing with, say Spalding, he said. It's going head-to-head with tech companies like DribbleUp, ShotTracker, and other startups trying to create deeper, data-driven experiences tied to products.
However, Licht said that traditional ball companies are preparing for a reality in which connected balls will be a key component of their business.
“Many of the traditional companies have approached connected balls in their own ways, whether it’s setting up internal engineering teams or by working with partners,” he said.
'The long-term potential is much larger'
Looking ahead, SIQ is thinking broadly about its addressable market. For Anderson, SIQ is for anyone who plays basketball, which means 25 million basketball players in the U.S. and 450 million worldwide. In the long-term, Anderson says the tech’s implications go beyond basketball. SIQ’s patents “cover all sporting projectiles, and track events like a make or a miss through algorithms and via radio frequency movement pipelines,” he said.
“The near-term vision for SIQ is exclusively basketball and the long-term potential is much larger,” Anderson added.
If you want to know what it all looks like, Rolland Clifton, CEO and cinematographer at Rich Sports Media, shot and produced a basketball mixtape – a collection of sports highlights artistically mashed together – for me with the SIQ ball (video below).
While I’m not expecting any calls from the WNBA, I walked out the door having made more shots in a few hours than I had in my entire life. To my disbelief, Anderson had delivered and I dribbled, bounced, and threw that ball. It works.
You can buy the ball, which starts at $99 on SIQ's website; it has a corresponding membership option that comes out to $83.88 annually or $6.99 a month.
Allie Garfinkle is a Senior Tech Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @agarfinks.
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