Shooting Streaks: Do they exist?

[silesian]

nice work

cool analysis, although I may quibble that your conclusion is too broad given the analytical approach.

A better conclusion could be "the average NBA player is not a streak shooter" since it says nothing about any individual. You could hypothetically have a group of "streak shooters" (those having an positive slope on your graph) that is offset by others who are less likely to make the next shot after making one (negative slope, perhaps a "fatigue shooter" who is makes lower % as a game progresses?).


You could also get around the issue of only accounting for "pure streaks" -- a series of makes -- by correlating the % made on the nth shot to the percent made of the previous m shots. For example, correlate % made on 6th shot to % made on shots 1-5. May or may not add insights but might be interesting.

Again, thanks for crunching the numbers, your analysis is very interesting.

 

[zbone]

Did you filter the set for jump shots only?

 

[Siro]

Okay, so I decided to run the numbers for Jamaal Crawford, since he is known as one of the streakiest shooters. Sample size 500 shots, which is pretty small given we're trying to measure streaks of shots. But here are the results:

His overall FG% is 39.5%. He shoots 4% better after hitting 2 shots in a row, and a little better with 3 shots in a row. Sample is too small for 4 shots in a row to give meaningful results. I think it is likely that the trend continues with bigger sample, but we're still talking about an overall increase of only a couple of percentage points. Interesting nonetheless!

 

[Siro]

Did you filter the set for jump shots only?

I didn't. I thought about it, but I think you have to consider floaters, hook shots, and such, in streaks. Since big men shoot a higher percentage anyway, I decided to keep the sample to PGs, SGs, and SFs.

 

[Siro]

cool analysis, although I may quibble that your conclusion is too broad given the analytical approach.

A better conclusion could be "the average NBA player is not a streak shooter" since it says nothing about any individual. You could hypothetically have a group of "streak shooters" (those having an positive slope on your graph) that is offset by others who are less likely to make the next shot after making one (negative slope, perhaps a "fatigue shooter" who is makes lower % as a game progresses?).


You could also get around the issue of only accounting for "pure streaks" -- a series of makes -- by correlating the % made on the nth shot to the percent made of the previous m shots. For example, correlate % made on 6th shot to % made on shots 1-5. May or may not add insights but might be interesting.

Again, thanks for crunching the numbers, your analysis is very interesting.

Excellent points. This would require a lot more coding, and I'm extremely lazy. However, I will try to implement some of that sometime in the future.

 

[Siro]

Interesting take. I'd be just as interested if shooting slumps exist. Mostly because I believe missing a shot hurts the mindset going forward more than making a shot helps. I'm terrible at this kind of stuff though, so I won't even be making what would be a failed attempt.

This would require a different approach, but I don't think it would be difficult to come up with a meaningful way to measure slumps. I will probably give it a go when I'm free.

 

[zbone]

I didn't. I thought about it, but I think you have to consider floaters, hook shots, and such, in streaks. Since big men shoot a higher percentage anyway, I decided to keep the sample to PGs, SGs, and SFs.

I would bet layups will add avoidable noise to your data though.

 

[kabenac]

Was Trey Burke part of this Methlab calculation?

That's exactly what I was going to say - J.R. Smith comes to mind also. Some guys shoot either hot or cold and the swing is wide.

 

[Doublea]

I've always just assumed being "hot" was just a run of shots going in, like flipping a coin. You can have 6 heads in a row and you can think of this as a hot streak, but it will average out later. It's hard to calculate the human part into it though...

 

[fishonjazz]

I've always just assumed being "hot" was just a run of shots going in, like flipping a coin. You can have 6 heads in a row and you can think of this as a hot streak, but it will average out later. It's hard to calculate the human part into it though...

This

 

[Beer]

I've been known to ball out for real. Shooting streaks absolutely do exist no ifs ands or butts about it. I appreciate the effort NAOS and it was interesting but..... they do exist.

 

[Siro]

I've been known to ball out for real. Shooting streaks absolutely do exist no ifs ands or butts about it. I appreciate the effort NAOS and it was interesting but..... they do exist.

I don't think I'm NAOS, but I agree that you get the last word on what does and doesn't exist.