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.
Highlights
Since 1970, the National Basketball Association’s (NBA’s) scoring title is awarded to the player with the most points per game
Capability and opportunity in NBA hot shooting with a low MSE, and after accounting for opportunity, MSEadj in column (2) were significantly associated with all listed statistics
Consistent with the statistics on field goal performance shown in columns (1) and (3), MSEadj had a significant positive correlation with FGA but showed significant negative associations with field goal percentage, points scored, and team winning percentage (W/L)
Summary
Since 1970, the National Basketball Association’s (NBA’s) scoring title is awarded to the player with the most points per game. Column (1), which includes all data (N = 1132 games), two independent variables are significant For both FG and 3-point FG, two standardized regression coefficients of X1 and X2 in the modeling results implied that opportunity is relatively more important than capability, accounting for general shooting performance. Consistent with the statistics on field goal performance shown in columns (1) and (3), MSEadj had a significant positive correlation with FGA but showed significant negative associations with field goal percentage, points scored, and team winning percentage (W/L) This implies that in this condition, assuming shooting opportunity as a constant, higher capability in shooting scores can reflect good performance, with fewer FGA for both two points and three points. MSEadj generally showed significant positive correlation coefficients with turnovers (except in column (3)
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