Let's shoot some hoops!

Welcome to the second lab! In this lab, you'll learn all about probability, dependent and independent events, and simulating event sequences in R.

Throughout this lab, we'll investigate the much debated phenomenon of hot hands. When a basketball player makes several baskets in succession, they are describe as having a "hot hand". Fans and players have long believed in this phenomenon, which refutes the assumption that each shot is independent of the next. However, a 1985 paper by Gilovich, Vallone, and Tversky found evidence that contradicted this belief and showed that successive shots are independent events.

We do not expect to resolve this controversy today. However, in this lab we'll apply one approach to answering questions like this. The goals for this lab are to (1) think about the effects of independent and dependent events, (2) learn how to simulate shooting streaks in R, and (3) to compare a simulation to actual data in order to determine if the hot hand phenomenon appears to be real.