Vietnamese basketball lacks data: Analyst names the disease leaving clubs empty-handed at the negotiation table

27 dossiers placed on the table, I smell not risk, but tomorrow. It was an afternoon in Nha Trang, when a young basketball club sent a recruitment list to me, hoping I would help them find rough gems for the upcoming season. But as I opened each file, an uneasy feeling arose: everything stopped at height, weight, and a few lines of coach comments. No efficiency metrics, no off-ball movement data, no statistical record of actual minutes played. I don't blame them. Vietnamese basketball is in transition: the professional VBA has gone through more than a decade, but the data system remains like a wilderness. While major leagues use motion tracking, video analysis, advanced metrics PER, TS%, or Win Shares, in Vietnam, scouts still rely on the naked eye and intuition. This creates a huge gap between assessing the real potential of players and making risky investment decisions. I once witnessed a club recruit a foreign player with a salary of hundreds of millions of dong per month based solely on YouTube highlights. No one checked his on-ball defense, no one looked at how he handled pressure. Result: three months later, he was released for failing to integrate. The club lost money and, more importantly, lost precious time. This is not a problem of one team. The entire Vietnamese basketball ecosystem is operating on a 'groping' model. From youth academies to the national team, statistics are barely collected systematically. Coach courses don't teach how to use analytics; amateur matches have no detailed scorekeepers. Analysts like me must build their own tracking sheets, manually gather data from match videos, estimate expected value for every shot – a time-consuming and error-prone job. But I'm not pessimistic. From an investment perspective, this is an opportunity for those who dare to step forward. Any club that builds a data system now will create a massive competitive advantage in the next 5 to 10 years. The Vietnamese basketball market is still young, an unclaimed goldmine. Those 27 dossiers may lack enough information for evaluation, but if we sow a culture of data today, the best players will be found through those numbers, not by gut feeling. 'Mbappé scored, but I'm studying my own mistakes.' I still tell my colleagues that. In my career as a sports financial analyst, I have made many mistakes. Once I overrated a young player because he scored many points in poor-quality friendlies; in professional games, he couldn't handle pressure. That mistake taught me that data isn't about averages, but about stability across games and different opponents. 'The 40-page plan was drowned by the night rain, but I learned to swim.' When I worked for a football club in Khanh Hoa, I built a comprehensive restructuring plan of 40 pages. Then the pandemic hit, sponsors withdrew, the team dissolved. My plan became meaningless. But those hardships taught me to overcome, to adapt to unpredictable variables. For Vietnamese basketball, such night rains may be financial crises, star departures, or pandemics. Surviving makes the market healthier. Some argue data analysis is a Western trend, useless in Vietnam because of the lower player level. I disagree. Data isn't meant to judge high or low skill; it measures a player's fit to a tactical system and reveals invisible improvements. A player with low shooting percentage, if he consistently positions himself for rebounds and stretches defenses, deserves a roster spot. Look at how Vietnam's national basketball team made great strides at SEA Games 31 under a foreign coach. They relied not only on a few outstanding individuals but also used video analysis of opponents' strengths and weaknesses. Tactical meetings lasted hours, dissecting every play. Such investment in data brought clear results. But that Cinderella story is being forgotten. In rushing for short-term success, we fail to build long-term foundations. I see many clubs spending heavily on established stars while neglecting scouting teams and data infrastructure. This creates instability: when a star gets injured or declines, the whole team collapses. An analyst's role isn't just counting numbers. It's connecting math to reality. Those 27 player files, I kept them and created my own tracker. After three seasons, I can see who truly developed and who was merely a product of a favorable environment. Patience and long-term analysis are key. Conversely, when I see clubs hastily signing expensive contracts with players lacking statistical evidence, I know they are buying risk, not opportunity. 'The first step of a number counter is to admit he cannot count everything.' I admit that I cannot fully assess a player's potential solely through metrics. End-game situations, psychology, team chemistry – some things data never fully captures. But data can help us ask the right questions, eliminate blind choices, and focus on tactical blind spots. Vietnamese basketball needs a revolution in management mindset. Not an expensive technological one, but a perceptual shift: every game, practice, and player must be systemically recorded. This starts with clubs accepting to work with analysts, accepting that numbers will challenge their intuition. Then decisions become evidence-based, not driven by momentary hype. Clubs can start small: assign an assistant coach to record minutes, shots, turnovers in each practice. Invest in a wide-angle camera to capture all games. Hire someone with video editing skills. These costs are far lower than an ineffective foreign signing. And the benefits are huge. As the VBA becomes more professional, with investment funds and international sponsors, demand for transparency and efficiency will inevitably rise. Clubs that fail to adapt will lag, losing resources. We can learn from developed leagues like Korea or the Philippines, which built opponent databases and structured scouting early. Above all, keep humans in the equation. I remember a bench player with humble stats who was the soul of the locker room, always cheering and stabilizing morale. Data cannot measure that silent sacrifice. So never replace human intelligence with math; use math to augment human intelligence, not replace it. I hope one day soon, when receiving a young player's file from a Vietnamese club, I will see alongside height and weight also efficiency ratings, shooting percentages, defensive metrics. Then I will truly smell tomorrow more clearly. Those 27 files are just the beginning; an entire generation of Vietnamese basketball players deserves to be properly valued. And I will still be here, with spreadsheets and pens, ready to count numbers that never lie. Counting to find the truth, even when it is harsh against old prejudices. My '40-page plan' may have drowned in rain, but I learned to swim – and I'm swimming toward the future of a smart league.