Sports analytics
Contender
An NBA player-prop analytics platform that shows its work, keeps its evidence, and labels its limits.
- Client
- Higgins Digital
- Industry
- Sports analytics
- Build type
- NBA player-prop analytics platform
- Status
- Live
- Capabilities
- AI, Automation, and Data Systems, Digital Products and Platforms, Custom Website Builds
- Stack
- Next.js, Clerk, Vercel
- Scope
- Product design, data pipeline, web development
The problem
Most prop tools hand over a pick and hide everything behind it.
A number with no projection, no recent history, and no stated confidence cannot be checked, so it has to be taken on faith. When it misses, there is no record of what the tool actually said or why.
Probabilities make it worse. A figure presented as a precise chance reads as a guarantee, even when the model behind it has never been calibrated against real outcomes.
The direction
Build an analysis tool rather than a pick service, and make transparency the product.
Every analysis starts from a canonical player index and a schedule-backed game, so identity and matchup context are never typed in by hand. The line stays as the user's own input, and the result lays out the projection, margin against the line, recent games, historical hit rates, matchup context, reasons, and risks together.
Nothing is quietly rewritten afterward. Saved analyses are immutable, historical replays are labeled and graded against stored box scores, and hits and misses are shown side by side.
What was built
- Single-prop analysis flow from player, event, and market selection through to a saved result
- Analysis progress with explicit validation, data loading, computation, and retry states
- Evidence view covering projection, last ten games, record against the line, matchup context, and risks
- Parlay drafts with independence assumptions, dependence bounds, same-game flags, and failed-leg handling
- Methodology pages defining projection, hit rates, matchup context, and probability estimates
- Free tier of three single-prop analyses a day, with sign-up and no card required
Details
- Schedules and box scores from stats.nba.com are ingested and versioned by Contender itself.
- Historical replays are labeled as replays and graded against stored outcomes, misses included.
- Probabilities are marked as uncalibrated model estimates, never presented as guarantees.
- Saved analyses are immutable, so a result can be reopened exactly as it was produced.
- Contender does not accept wagers, and nothing on it is betting or financial advice.
- Not affiliated with or endorsed by the NBA, with responsible gambling resources on every page.
“We went in with a pretty firm rule: no locks, no hype, show the math. A lot of people told us that would make the product harder to sell. Higgins Digital never pushed back on it. They built the whole platform around that idea, right down to labeling replays as replays and putting the misses next to the hits. What surprised us was how much care went into the unglamorous parts, like what the screen says while an analysis is still running, or what happens when the data doesn't come back. It feels like a real product, not a side project, and that's exactly what we were after.”
