When Larry Silverberg and his colleague Chau Tran began studying the science of the basketball shot in the early 2000s, Iowa star Caitlin Clark was just a toddler but had yet to walk to the 3-point line, let alone pull up from 5 feet behind the arc. But even with Clark, Stephen Curry and the explosion of the 3 still years away, the jump shot became among the academic focuses for Silverberg and Tran, both of whom are basketball fans and professors in North Carolina State’s mechanical and aerospace engineering department. “Basketball,” Silverberg says, “is highly predictable.”
Formulas that predict whether a pull-up will go through a 10-foot hoop with an 18-inch diameter take into account factors such as release height, launch angle, release speed and backspin. It’s why for years now, robots capable of shooting like top-tier basketball players have developed. Although Clark is no Cue6, her proficiency from deep often looks automatic.
In dissecting the shooting skills of Clark, who broke the women’s Big Ten, NCAA and major-college career scoring records this season, Tran picks up on the 6-foot guard’s high release point. Silverberg notices the arc on her jumper and how her 3-pointer appears to travel on an ideal trajectory. “She’s shooting an optimal shot,”…
