
Simpson's Paradox and the Hot Hand in Basketball (1995) - micaeloliveira
http://fermatslibrary.com/s/simpsons-paradox-and-the-hot-hand-in-basketball#email-newsletter
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rossdavidh
The hot hand "fallacy" has actually been under a bit of a revisionist assault
lately. An example (from baseball):
[https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-hot-hand-
is-r...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-hot-hand-is-real/)
TLDR: there is a hot hand (in baseball pitching, anyway), but you have to be
very, very good at statistics to see that, or else just a big baseball fan. If
you have just pretty good statistics, and you don't have a baseball fanatic's
intuition, you can (erroneously) conclude that there is no (pitcher's) hot
hand (in baseball).

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fossuser
I’ve always suspected this fallacy in terms of sports was a bad example -
since humans doing certain motor/coordination actions and getting feedback on
that success seemed likely to stack.

I wonder if it holds in other contexts.

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cirgue
Another point of view is that this makes sports a great example: we believe
the 'hot-hand' phenomenon intuitively, but the statistics tell a complicated
and seemingly contradictory story.

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magpi3
Interesting paper, but as a former basketball but, I disagree with the premise
that free throws have anything to do with a "hot hand."

To me a hot hand is only something that can exist in the flow of the game. It
is not about making shots. It is about making contested shots and quick
decisions. A player with a hot hand is one that is feeling especially focused
and confident for a specific period of time. Ideally a player tries to hold
onto their focus and confidence for the entire game, but unless they have a
Buddha-like nature that is just not possible.

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lhuser123
> A player with a hot hand is one that is feeling especially focused and
> confident for a specific period of time

Yeah, like Kay Thompson dropping 37 points in 1 quarter and not missing any
shoots. Even himself seems confused about what’s going on.

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pocketsquare2
Case further in point, MJ with "The Shrug Game"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daP4JysFcUg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daP4JysFcUg)

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Bromskloss
By the way, is there anywhere one can bet on the outcome of a game while the
game is being played? It would be awesome to see the odds change in response
to something that happened in the game that second, just like how a stock
market reacts to news about the business.

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bayonetz
Yeah. Any online sports betting site. Football for example, you can bet
realtime on things like halftime score, final score, etc. as the game
progresses. Even cooler is you can bet on the next play. Like "next play will
result in a first down" or "next play they will run the ball".

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harry8
[http://andrewgelman.com/2015/07/09/hey-guess-what-there-
real...](http://andrewgelman.com/2015/07/09/hey-guess-what-there-really-is-a-
hot-hand/)

It's a really interesting problem to analyse.

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yarg
The hot hand fallacy fallacy. The trials are not independant (there's a
feedback loop) and the initial probabilities are not fixed from game to game.

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yarg
(Or rather, the hot-hand fallacy misapplication.)

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sceadu
Interesting related talk about this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc6ZP1jtnoo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc6ZP1jtnoo)

