The effect of perceived streakiness on the shot‐taking behaviour of basketball players

Abstract

We examine behavioural changes of basketball players arising from the hot-hand belief and use data of 1216 National Basketball Association games to measure the effect of cold and hot streaks on three proxies of shot difficulty. We find that the more consecutive shots players make (miss), the more difficult (easier) shots become along the three dimensions. Furthermore, most players' performance seems to improve during hot streaks because they attempt more difficult shots while no significant decrease in shooting accuracy takes place. This might explain why most previous studies could not find empirical evidence for the hot-hand belief in basketball when considering in-game field goal shooting.

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

“…Accordingly, no other cues, i.e., a streaky shooting performance, are 1586 P. Csapo et al considered if a player is double-teamed, and the first option which comes into the players' minds in these situations is to pass the ball. Given that the performance of players after a hot streak is somewhat elevated as shown by Aharoni and Sarig (2012) and Csapo et al (2014), the observed use of the hot-hand heuristic by coaches can indeed be ecologically rational in the context of our experimental study since it leads exceptionally high-performing players to pass the ball instead of shooting themselves. However, the indirect consequences of increasing the pressure on a streaky player also have to be considered, as it might entail the risk that another player is left open.…”

“…Defence: one-on-one Defence: double-team explanation for the findings of Aharoni and Sarig (2012) and Csapo et al (2014), as the changes in the players' shot-taking behaviour may have indeed occurred due to higher defensive pressure. Similarly to coaches, players were likely to display hot-hand behaviour as they were generally more prone to shoot after a streaky than a non-streaky sequence.…”

“…Strategic adjustments include to double-team the hot player or to guard him more closely. However, merely two studies (i.e., Aharoni & Sarig, 2012;Csapo, Avugos, Raab, & Bar-Eli, 2014) actually examined changes in the shot-taking behaviour of streaky players and related these findings to potential defensive adjustments. Both studies found that a hot-hand effect indeed exists but is masked by increases in shot difficulty.…”

“…The authors concluded that hot players tended to attempt more difficult shots, whereas their teammates attempted easier ones -a potential indication that the defensive focus may have shifted towards the hot player. Meanwhile, Csapo et al (2014) showed how three shooting variables, i.e., shot distance, shot type and shot angle, affected the field goal percentage (FG%) of NBA players and examined how these variables changed during streaks. They found that shot difficulty increased along the three dimensions the more consecutive shots a player had made, while shots became easier following consecutive misses.…”

Effectiveness of elite female basketball players’ technical-tactic actions and ways for their improvement at stage of maximal realization of individual potentials

“…Foreign authors stress on specific problem and possible ways of its overcoming [14,21]. For example dissertation of T. Khutsynskiy (2004) is devoted to influence of sex factors on many years' training of female basketball players [13].…”