IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0179154.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Capability and opportunity in hot shooting performance: Evidence from top-scoring NBA leaders

Author

Listed:
  • Shun-Chuan Chang

Abstract

In basketball games, whenever players successfully shoot in streaks, they are expected to demonstrate heightened performance for a stretch of time. Streak shooting in basketball has been debated for more than three decades, but most studies have provided little significant statistical evidence and have labeled random subjective judgments the “hot hand fallacy.” To obtain a broader perspective of the hot hand phenomenon and its accompanying influences on the court, this study uses field goal records and optical tracking data from the official NBA database for the entire 2015–2016 season to analyze top-scoring leaders’ shooting performances. We first reflect on the meaning of “hot hand” and the “Matthew effect” in actual basketball competition. Second, this study employs statistical models to integrate three different shooting perspectives (field goal percentage, points scored, and attempts). This study’s findings shed new light not only on the existence or nonexistence of streaks, but on the roles of capability and opportunity in NBA hot shooting. Furthermore, we show how hot shooting performances resulting from capability and opportunity lead to actual differences for teams.

Suggested Citation

  • Shun-Chuan Chang, 2018. "Capability and opportunity in hot shooting performance: Evidence from top-scoring NBA leaders," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-14, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0179154
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179154
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0179154
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0179154&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0179154?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arkes Jeremy, 2010. "Revisiting the Hot Hand Theory with Free Throw Data in a Multivariate Framework," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-12, January.
    2. Jaime Sampaio & Tim McGarry & Julio Calleja-González & Sergio Jiménez Sáiz & Xavi Schelling i del Alcázar & Mindaugas Balciunas, 2015. "Exploring Game Performance in the National Basketball Association Using Player Tracking Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-14, July.
    3. repec:cup:judgdm:v:5:y:2010:i:2:p:124-132 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Rabin, Matthew, 2000. "Inference by Believers in the Law of Small Numbers," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt4sw8n41t, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    5. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2014. "A Cold Shower for the Hot Hand Fallacy," Working Papers 518, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    6. Jerry W. Kim & Brayden G King, 2014. "Seeing Stars: Matthew Effects and Status Bias in Major League Baseball Umpiring," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(11), pages 2619-2644, November.
    7. Tsang, Eric W. K., 2014. "Old and New," Management and Organization Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(03), pages 390-390, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2015. "Is it a Fallacy to Believe in the Hot Hand in the NBA Three-Point Contest?," Working Papers 548, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    2. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2018. "Surprised by the Hot Hand Fallacy? A Truth in the Law of Small Numbers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(6), pages 2019-2047, November.
    3. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2019. "Surprised by the Hot Hand Fallacy? A Truth in the Law of Small Numbers," Papers 1902.01265, arXiv.org.
    4. Miller, Joshua B. & Sanjurjo, Adam, 2021. "Is it a fallacy to believe in the hot hand in the NBA three-point contest?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    5. Miller, Joshua Benjamin & Sanjurjo, Adam, 2018. "A Visible (Hot) Hand? Expert Players Bet on the Hot Hand and Win," OSF Preprints sd32u, Center for Open Science.
    6. Miller, Joshua Benjamin & Sanjurjo, Adam, 2018. "Is it a Fallacy to Believe in the Hot Hand in the NBA Three-Point Contest?," OSF Preprints dmksp, Center for Open Science.
    7. Cotton, Christopher S. & McIntyre, Frank & Nordstrom, Ardyn & Price, Joseph, 2019. "Correcting for bias in hot hand analysis: An application to youth golf," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 75(PB).
    8. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2014. "A Cold Shower for the Hot Hand Fallacy," Working Papers 518, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    9. Robert M. Lantis & Erik T. Nesson, 2019. "Hot Shots: An Analysis of the ‘Hot Hand’ in NBA Field Goal and Free Throw Shooting," NBER Working Papers 26510, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Brett Green & Jeffrey Zwiebel, 2018. "The Hot-Hand Fallacy: Cognitive Mistakes or Equilibrium Adjustments? Evidence from Major League Baseball," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5315-5348, November.
    11. Robert Lantis & Erik Nesson, 2024. "The Hot Hand in the NBA 3-Point Contest: The Importance of Location, Location, Location," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(3), pages 283-321, April.
    12. Jeremy Arkes, 2020. "Teaching Graduate (and Undergraduate) Econometrics: Some Sensible Shifts to Improve Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Usefulness," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-23, September.
    13. Robert Lantis & Erik Nesson, 2021. "Hot Shots: An Analysis of the “Hot Hand†in NBA Field Goal and Free Throw Shooting," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(6), pages 639-677, August.
    14. Miller, Joshua Benjamin & Sanjurjo, Adam, 2018. "A Cold Shower for the Hot Hand Fallacy: Robust Evidence that Belief in the Hot Hand is Justified," OSF Preprints pj79r, Center for Open Science.
    15. Cohen-Zada, Danny & Krumer, Alex & Shtudiner, Ze'ev, 2017. "Psychological momentum and gender," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 66-81.
    16. Marius Ötting & Roland Langrock & Christian Deutscher & Vianey Leos‐Barajas, 2020. "The hot hand in professional darts," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 183(2), pages 565-580, February.
    17. David M. Ritzwoller & Joseph P. Romano, 2019. "Uncertainty in the Hot Hand Fallacy: Detecting Streaky Alternatives to Random Bernoulli Sequences," Papers 1908.01406, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2021.
    18. Ali Shalizar Jalali, 2018. "Male Fertility as a Bull’s Eye for Mastocytosis," Global Journal of Reproductive Medicine, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 3(3), pages 58-60, February.
    19. Paul Bose & Eberhard Feess & Helge Mueller, 2022. "Favoritism towards High-Status Clubs: Evidence from German Soccer," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 422-478.
    20. Hui Yan & Guixiang Liu, 2021. "Fire’s Effects on Grassland Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-15, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0179154. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.