Quote (Soundless @ Oct 17 2017 08:46am)

You might both be right, you just operate with different definitions of "hot hand" (and some confirmation bias). The feeling is definitely there, yet it doesn't show up statistically. Why?

The following studys might give us some ideas:

1: You're more likely to miss your next shot because the defence adapts, giving you more attention (Raab, Markus; Gula, Bartosz; Gigerenzer, Gerd (2012). "Raab, M., Gula, B., & Gigerenzer, G. (2011)". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied). The same article confirms that the hot hand exists in Volleyball (where defences cannot shift their attention towards an individual to the same degree).
2: You're attempting shots with a higher difficulty when you're hot (LeDaddys own linked-to deadspin article).

So you'll make shots you otherwise wouldn't hit because you're hot, but you offset that "hotness" due to shot selection. If the defence doesn't honor you, and you keep your shot selection, you should in theory be able to ride the hot hand.
Likewise when you're cold: Players tend to cheat in defence, overhelping, opening up higher quality shots when you're cold. Thus you have a higher probability to make the shot.

You do feel hot when you make that contested step-back 3. On the other hand you do feel cold when you miss wide open Js.

For free throws the hot hand, statistically, seems to exist (Yaari, G.; Eisenmann, S. (2011). "The Hot (Invisible?) Hand: Can Time Sequence Patterns of Success/Failure in Sports Be Modeled as Repeated Random Independent Trials?")

Maybe we could all be friends now? No? Was afraid so :rofl: