One of the most fiercely debated topics in sports is the hot hand theory. The hot hand theory says that success breeds success. In other words, rather than each shot a basketball player takes or each at-bat a baseball player has being an independent event, the outcome of one event affects the next event. That is, a player can get hot and make a lot of shots in a row or get a lot of hits in a row. The hot hand theory, however, has been shown to be false in numerous academic studies. Read this article, which discusses the hot hand theory as it relates to a professional basketball player. State whether you agree or disagree with the hot hand theory, and give reasons for your opinion. Be sure to use some of the terms you’ve learned in this unit, such as independent event, dependent event, and conditional probability, in your answer.

Article

The 'hot hand' describes the belief that the performance of an athlete, typically a basketball player, temporarily improves following a string of successes. Although some earlier research failed to detect a hot hand, these studies are often criticized for using inappropriate settings and measures. The present study was designed with these criticisms in mind. It offers new evidence in a unique setting, the NBA Long Distance Shootout contest, using various measures. Traditional sequential dependency runs analyses, individual-level analyses, and an analysis of spontaneous outbursts by contest announcers about players who are 'on fire' fail to reveal evidence of a hot hand. We conclude that declarations of hotness in basketball are best viewed as historical commentary rather than as prophecy about future performance.