Hot hand or choking under pressure – Evidence from professional basketball

Abstract

This paper examines the existence of a hot hand and whether performing in front of a supportive audience creates a psychological pressure, which may impair performance. Using the task of free throwing in basketball competitions involving National Basketball Association (NBA) regular season and playoff games, I find strong evidence of a hot hand and a negative causal effect of the spectators on the probability of a successful shoot. The results support the hot hand fallacy and are in line with the hypothesis of choking under pressure when performing skill-based tasks. Furthermore, contrary to what would be expected given the evidence in favor of a choking phenomenon, the effect of star players is insignificant. The hot hand effects for stars and non-stars are the same in direction. Finally, efforts increase the performance, and the influence of hot hands and choking are not different between home and away shootings.