IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/29468.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Hot Hand in the NBA 3-Point Contest: The Importance of Location, Location, Location

Author

Listed:
  • Robert M. Lantis
  • Erik T. Nesson

Abstract

Do basketball players exhibit a hot hand? Results from controlled shooting situations suggest the answer is yes, while results from in-game shooting are mixed. Are the differing results because a hot hand is only present in similar shots or because testing for the hot hand in game situations is difficult? Combining repeated shots in a location and shots across locations, the NBA 3-Point Contests mimics game situations without many of the confounding factors. Using data on the 1986-2019 contests, we find a hot hand, but only within shot locations. Shooting streaks increase a hot hand only if a player makes his previous shot and only within locations. Even making three shots in a row has no effect on making the next shot if a player moves locations. Our results suggest that any hot hand in basketball is only present in extremely similar shooting situations and likely not in the run-of-play.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert M. Lantis & Erik T. Nesson, 2021. "The Hot Hand in the NBA 3-Point Contest: The Importance of Location, Location, Location," NBER Working Papers 29468, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29468
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w29468.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. David Roodman, 2009. "A Note on the Theme of Too Many Instruments," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(1), pages 135-158, February.
    3. Christoph Bühren & Stefan Krabel, 2015. "Individual Performance after Success and Failure - A Natural Experiment," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201505, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    4. David Roodman, 2009. "How to do xtabond2: An introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(1), pages 86-136, March.
    5. Gur Yaari & Shmuel Eisenmann, 2011. "The Hot (Invisible?) Hand: Can Time Sequence Patterns of Success/Failure in Sports Be Modeled as Repeated Random Independent Trials?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(10), pages 1-10, October.
    6. Daniel L. Chen & Tobias J. Moskowitz & Kelly Shue, 2016. "Decision Making Under the Gambler’s Fallacy: Evidence from Asylum Judges, Loan Officers, and Baseball Umpires," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1181-1242.
    7. Kapetanios, George & Marcellino, Massimiliano, 2010. "Factor-GMM estimation with large sets of possibly weak instruments," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 54(11), pages 2655-2675, November.
    8. Miller, Joshua Benjamin & Sanjurjo, Adam, 2018. "Surprised by the Hot Hand Fallacy? A Truth in the Law of Small Numbers," OSF Preprints sv9x2, Center for Open Science.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Sanders, Shane & Walia, Bhavneet, 2012. "Shirking and “choking” under incentive-based pressure: A behavioral economic theory of performance production," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 363-366.
    12. Gil Aharoni & Oded H. Sarig, 2012. "Hot hands and equilibrium," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(18), pages 2309-2320, June.
    13. 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.
    14. Nerlove, Marc, 1971. "Further Evidence on the Estimation of Dynamic Economic Relations from a Time Series of Cross Sections," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 39(2), pages 359-382, March.
    15. 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).
    16. Zheng Cao & Joseph Price & Daniel F. Stone, 2011. "Performance Under Pressure in the NBA," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(3), pages 231-252, June.
    17. Chen, Daniel L. & Moskowitz, Tobias J. & Shue, Kelly, 2016. "Decision-Making Under the Gambler’s Fallacy: Evidence From Asylum Courts, Loan Officers, and Baseball Umpires," IAST Working Papers 16-43, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    18. Daniel F. Stone, 2012. "Measurement Error and the Hot Hand," The American Statistician, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 66(1), pages 61-66, February.
    19. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    20. Bai, Jushan & Ng, Serena, 2010. "Instrumental Variable Estimation In A Data Rich Environment," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(6), pages 1577-1606, December.
    21. 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.
    22. Dorsey-Palmateer R. & Smith G., 2004. "Bowlers Hot Hands," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 58, pages 38-45, February.
    23. Brown, William O & Sauer, Raymond D, 1993. "Does the Basketball Market Believe in the Hot Hand? Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1377-1386, December.
    24. David M Ritzwoller & Joseph P Romano, 2022. "Uncertainty in the Hot Hand Fallacy: Detecting Streaky Alternatives to Random Bernoulli Sequences," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(2), pages 976-1007.
    25. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    26. Klaassen F. J G M & Magnus J. R., 2001. "Are Points in Tennis Independent and Identically Distributed? Evidence From a Dynamic Binary Panel Data Model," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 96, pages 500-509, June.
    27. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    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. 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.
    6. Markowitz, Sara & Nesson, Erik & Robinson, Joshua J., 2019. "The effects of employment on influenza rates," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 286-295.
    7. Wen‐Jhan Jane, 2023. "Hot hand or choking under pressure – Evidence from professional basketball," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(2), pages 223-254, May.
    8. Canarella, Giorgio & Miller, Stephen M., 2018. "The determinants of growth in the U.S. information and communication technology (ICT) industry: A firm-level analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 259-271.
    9. Evans, Andrew E. & Crosby, Paul, 2021. "Does a cool head beat a hot hand? Evidence from professional golf," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 272-284.
    10. Gründler, Klaus & Scheuermeyer, Philipp, 2018. "Growth effects of inequality and redistribution: What are the transmission channels?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 293-313.
    11. 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.
    12. Emna Trabelsi, 2022. "Macroprudential Transparency and Price Stability in Emerging and Developing Countries," Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice, Central bank of Montenegro, vol. 11(1), pages 105-129.
    13. Nguyen Thi Tuong Anh & Hung Quang Doan & Tuan Anh Bui & Nam Hoang Vu & Duong Thuy Thanh Le, 2022. "A Revisit of Motives for Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment: The Role of the Institution in Host Countries," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(4), pages 21582440221, December.
    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. 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.
    16. Joseph L. Dieleman & Michael Hanlon, 2014. "Measuring The Displacement And Replacement Of Government Health Expenditure," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(2), pages 129-140, February.
    17. M. E. Bontempi & I. Mammi, 2014. "pca2: implementing a strategy to reduce the instrument count in panel GMM," Working Papers wp960, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    18. Ieva Skarda, 2016. "The Political Economy of Foreign Aid Effectiveness," Discussion Papers 16/12, Department of Economics, University of York.
    19. Iyke Bernard Njindan, 2017. "Does Trade Openness Matter for Economic Growth in the CEE Countries?," Review of Economic Perspectives, Sciendo, vol. 17(1), pages 3-24, March.
    20. Dima Bogdan & Dima Ştefana Maria, 2017. "Does Corporate Tax Burden Affect Growth? Evidences from OECD Countries," Journal of Heterodox Economics, Sciendo, vol. 4(2), pages 51-80, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • Z20 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - General
    • Z29 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:29468. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.