For nearly a decade, NBA cognoscenti have argued about the usefulness of advanced statistical metrics like Player Efficiency Rating and Win Shares. Recent advancements in the last few years, though, have made both sides in those arguments look relatively conservative. New optical tracking systems such as SportVU and biometric tracking systems like Catapult have allowed teams to measure players in terms of the efficiency of their on-court movement and their levels of exertion during practice. Franchises have more information on their players than ever before, which theoretically allows them to identify problem areas, improve more rapidly, and avoid preventable injuries.

Yet the expanding popularity of these systems has raised important questions about the ethics of teams tracking players to this extent. In a new feature for ESPN the Magazine, Pablo S. Torre and Tom Haberstroh dig into the issues at play and where teams may choose to track players next. It's not so much about the limits of knowledge as what teams shouldn't be allowed to find in the first place:

Teams have always intuited that on-court productivity could be undermined by off-court choices -- how a player exhausts himself after hours, for instance, or what he eats and drinks. Now the race is on to comprehensively surveil and quantify that behavior. NBA executives have discovered how to leverage new, ever-shrinking technologies to supervise a player's sleeping habits, record his physical movements, appraise his diet and test his blood. In automotive terms, the league is investing in a more accurate odometer.

"We need to be able to have impact on these players in their private time," says Kings general manager Pete D'Alessandro. "It doesn't have to be us vs. you. It can be a partnership."

A lovely sentiment, at least in theory. But how long will it be until biometric details impact contract negotiations? How long until graphs of off-court behavior are leaked to other teams or the press? How long until employment hinges on embracing technology that some find invasive?

"Employers dictating the health care of their employees is a conflict of interest that cannot be overcome," says Alan C. Milstein, a leading bioethics attorney and sports litigator who often represents NBA players. "I just refuse to believe that the purpose of monitoring on any long-term basis is the health of the employee. If the purpose is to predict performance, that's not a health care purpose. That's an economic purpose." [...]

"We want to be one step beyond what anyone else is doing," says Kings owner Vivek Ranadive, whose personal fortune was built on the comprehensive digitization of Wall Street. "Amazingly, what banks and trading floors were 20 years ago, sports is now. The stakes are huge, and we can act quickly." Just listen to his GM, who is thinking far deeper than mere skin. "The holy grail," D'Alessandro says, "is sequencing and understanding the genome. And how that relates to pro athletes on an injury basis and who's naturally good at certain sports." As part of his mandate with the Kings, he's consulted scientists about one day building a vast predraft database of player DNA -- not just for evaluation but for gauging injury risks and prevention. "You wouldn't have to be identified as a person," he says, "you could be identified as a number. I don't suspect this will happen in our lifetimes. But the way things have proliferated scientifically? Maybe it will."

History predicts serious pushback. In 2005, Alan Milstein represented Eddy Curry against the Bulls, whose management wanted the center to submit to genetic screening because of an irregular heartbeat. (Curry was eventually traded to the Knicks, bypassing the issue.) The core objection then, as now, was that genetic markers are not actual proof of alcoholism, or Alzheimer's, or cancer; they just signal greater odds of developing those conditions. In fact, as of the 2008 passing of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, it is illegal for employers to discriminate based on genetic information for that very reason. Choosing to privilege reality over probability in that way, Milstein notes, "was one of the few situations where Congress was actually unanimous."

Torre and Haberstroh detail several instances of teams checking in (or wanting to do so) on players off the court, including the Golden State Warriors having Andre Iguodala and others wear wristbands to monitor their sleep. In truth, most of the examples are fairly innocuous and involve players undergoing tests that would figure to improve their performance with minimal invasiveness. Every player mentioned also seems to take the monitoring and its results seriously, to the point where the information revealed could not be used against them in any obvious way.

Story continues