Philadelphia 76ers president Daryl Morey confirmed that artificial intelligence plays a role in the team’s decision-making process. Speaking with journalist Pablo Torre, Morey detailed how large language models (LLMs) contribute to evaluating players and strategic moves.
“We absolutely use models as a vote in any decision,” Morey said when asked about AI’s role in basketball operations, via Bleacher Report. “How much of that decision depends on how much the assumptions behind those models don’t change, and their past success rate.”
Morey emphasized that AI models perform well in certain areas, particularly in predictions, but do not yet surpass human forecasters. “It turns out LLMs do fairly well at prediction. They still are not beating human, like, super forecasters,” he said.
Despite their limitations, AI models provide valuable insights that complement traditional scouting. “They do add signal over just scouts and things like that. So we’ll treat them almost like one scout,” Morey explained.
Philadelphia is navigating a challenging season, sitting at 12th in the Eastern Conference with a 22-43 record. Injuries to Joel Embiid and Paul George have significantly impacted the team’s performance, leaving them 5.5 games behind the 10th-seeded Chicago Bulls.
Morey suggested that AI’s influence on team decisions could increase if its success rate improves. “Now over time, if it’s shown that they have a better track record than scouts, we might weight the LLMs or use multiple LLMs as one or two votes out of the process,” he said.
As technology continues to evolve, AI’s role in professional basketball could expand. For now, the Sixers use it as an additional tool rather than a primary decision-maker.
