EXAMPLE 5 The hot hand in basketball

Belief that runs must result from something other than “just chance” influences behavior. If a basketball player makes several consecutive shots, both the fans and his teammates believe that he has a “hot hand” and is more likely to make the next shot. This is not supported by data. Careful study has shown that runs of baskets made or missed are no more frequent in basketball than would be expected if each shot were independent of the player’s previous shots. Players perform consistently, not in streaks. If a player makes half her shots in the long run, her hits and misses behave just like tosses of a coin—and that means that runs of hits and misses are more common than our intuition expects.