Bob Voulgaris

I think if I have one talent in life, it's probably pattern recognition.

But I just started watching NBA basketball because I was in Vegas at the time.

And I was under the age of 21.

And it was one of the few places I could park myself in a casino without being bothered was in the sports book.

And I remember I would just sit there at the Stardust or the Caesars Palace and watch basketball.

basketball that was on.

I liked it and I developed an affinity for it and I wasn't actually good at it.

And then I decided this is something that I really enjoyed.

I somehow got satellite TV through those little dishes that came out and started watching a lot of NBA basketball and it became something I was obsessed with.

I loved it.

I loved the sport.

Yeah, I'm trying to collect as much data as possible.

And at the time, there wasn't a lot of data.

There was the box score, and that was about it.

In 1999, the NBA started publishing play-by-play data, which is a description of what happens on the court, including where the shots were taken, the location of the shots, who got the rebound, time of possession, when the shot was taken.

So you could get some detailed information.

And that became more and more detailed.

And I would say up until around 2016, that's all you had was play-by-play data.

But what I was doing is I was watching a lot of basketball, recording a lot of games on VHS.

I had like four VHS machines.