The Hot Hand in Basketball: On the Misperception of Random Sequences, image 1 of 11 / 1
Item

The Hot Hand in Basketball: On the Misperception of Random Sequences

in Stuff I Actually Read by Diego Navarro

The Hot Hand in Basketball: On the Misperception of Random Sequences on “Stuff I Actually Read”, a list by Diego Navarro on TheLysts.

Details

Photo
—
Name
—
Paper title
The Hot Hand in Basketball: On the Misperception of Random Sequences
Authors
Thomas Gilovich, Robert Vallone, Amos Tversky
Year
1985
Main topic
Hot hand fallacy and shooting streaks
Sport / context
NBA and basketball shooting data
Key idea in one line
What looks like a shooter on fire is often just random variance dressed up as momentum.
Level to read
Intermediate – some stats, but the story carries you.
My take
This is the classic ‘your uncle yelling shoot is wrong’ paper. Made me way more skeptical of “he’s due” takes from the upper bowl.