05-24-2010, 07:34 PM
<!--quoteo-->QUOTE <!--quotec-->I read about a couple of psychologists who studied the so-called "hot hand" in basketball—the idea that players who are hot keep hitting baskets and players who are cold keep missing them. No matter how they crunched the stats, it turned out that the phenomenon didn't exist<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a great example, to show how the stat heads are misguided. It is common sense, that some days, guys are going to be sick or injured, and have a bad day. They play against different defenders and coaches use different schemes. Hotness and coldness are not random, but they happen within a normal distribution. You take a guy with a 50% FG% (a coin) and flip it 16 times, for 82 games. It is not going to be 8 heads all 82 times. There are going to be a normal distribution of results - random hotness occurs. Basketball is a game of skill. We know actual hotness happens, but because it never happens to the extent that it could not be random, it does not statistically happen.
This is a great example, to show how the stat heads are misguided. It is common sense, that some days, guys are going to be sick or injured, and have a bad day. They play against different defenders and coaches use different schemes. Hotness and coldness are not random, but they happen within a normal distribution. You take a guy with a 50% FG% (a coin) and flip it 16 times, for 82 games. It is not going to be 8 heads all 82 times. There are going to be a normal distribution of results - random hotness occurs. Basketball is a game of skill. We know actual hotness happens, but because it never happens to the extent that it could not be random, it does not statistically happen.
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