How should “hot” players in basketball be defended? The use of fast-and-frugal heuristics by basketball coaches and players in response to streakiness

Peter Csapo,Simcha Avugos,Markus Raab,Michael Bar-Eli

doi:10.1080/02640414.2014.999251

Abstract

Previous research has shown that changes in shot difficulty may have rendered the hot-hand effect in basketball unobservable and are potentially a result of defensive adjustments. However, it has not been directly analysed whether strategic changes indeed take place in response to streakiness and whether they are effective with respect to winning games. The current work consists of an experimental study with 18 professional coaches and 20 players based on video sequences from National Basketball Association games, where the shown player displayed a streaky performance in half of the sequences. While coaches were asked to devise a defensive strategy after each viewed sequence, players had to assume the role of the shown player and decide whether to shoot or pass the ball. We find that coaches tended to increase the defensive pressure significantly more often on presumably hot players and thus make use of the hot-hand heuristic. Meanwhile, players chose to shoot more frequently in low-pressure and streaky situations but selected “pass” regardless of the previous performance when they faced increased defensive pressure. Assuming that a streaky player’s performance is indeed elevated during hot phases, hot-hand behaviour can be considered adaptive in certain situations as it led hot players to pass instead of shoot.

Highlights

Over the past decades, psychologists have shown great interest in examining how people evaluate probabilistic events, as they systematically perceive non-existent patterns by mistake
The outcome of previous shots had a significant effect on the players’ shot selection: The more consecutive shots players made, the more difficult shots became along the three dimensions and risk-taking propensity increased, while the opposite trend was observed for consecutive misses
The implications of the current work are primarily relevant for organizational behavior and financial markets as we explore behavioral consequences, i.e. changes in basketball players’ shooting behavior, resulting from the hot-hand belief

Summary

Introduction

Psychologists have shown great interest in examining how people evaluate probabilistic events, as they systematically perceive non-existent patterns by mistake. The vast majority of basketball players, coaches and fans believe in the existence of the hot hand but Gilovich, Vallone, and Tversky (1985) could not find any statistical evidence for a positive correlation between consecutive shots. Since the publication of this study, most researchers have focused on trying to statistically validate the existence of the hot hand Abrevaya found that low-ranked bowlers beat high-ranked ones more often than expected by chance because they experienced a hot hand through their previous wins. Livingston (2012) found evidence in favor of the hot hand’s existence among professional golfers and argued that the hot-hand effect has to be examined on an individual level as athletes have different characteristics and react differently to streaky performance. If the data are aggregated and the overall means are evaluated, no evidence in favor of the hot hand can be found

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