We’ve all seen it. Stephen Curry hits a 3. He comes down on the next possession and hits another 3. On the next possession, he launches another one with a hand in his face. As the shot is in the air, you think to yourself… this is definitely going in.

We have also experienced this feeling. I know I’ve hit a couple of jumpers, felt confident, and taken a shot that even Lance Stephenson wouldn’t attempt, all the while feeling 100% confident. The worst part is, I know deep down that those shots are bad shots. But I take them because I think, “Well, I’ve made the last few, so why not?”.

For a while, I’ve wondered whether the human intuition behind the principle of the “Hot-Hand” is backed by empirical data. That is, if an NBA player hits a couple of shots, is he more likely to hit the next? To answer this question, I will be looking at NBA Shot Data from 2014 .Although this data is dated, it is of high quality. The data I used can be found here. Let’s get started.

Statistically defined, the “Hot-Hand” principle can be defined in terms of conditional probability. For example, we can think of the hot-hand as the probability of shot conversion, given the player has made his previous “n” shots. Mathematically speaking, it is P(shot “n+1” is made | player has made the previous “n” shots).

While analyzing this data, I chose to focus on only players traditionally defined as Point Guards, Shooting Guards, and Small Forwards for the following reason:

These specific players typically score from a variety of positions. Think James Harden who is willing to drive to the basket and shoot 3’s. Traditional post players don’t display much variance in their shot selection. It is much harder to gauge the “hot-hand” if the player is mainly catching and dunking lobs.

Let’s take a look at the “hot-hand” of 2014’s perimeter players: