Maybe The Hot Hand Does Exist After All

Kevin Drum summarizes, and expresses skepticism.

I've got to say, I've never believed Gilovich and the anti-hot-hand crowd...

I know, I know...numbers numbers math math math...

I respect that arguments.

But, speaking for myself, I have very, very pronounced good days and very, very pronounced bad days of shooting. And it's not random. I am pretty good at feeling it when I'm shooting badly. My eyes aren't locking on the back of the hoop as automatically, my release is wrong...I'm often fuzzy-headed and easily upset by missing...  Other days, it's all just clicking...  And I'm also convinced that the cycles can be shorter, even short enough to fit inside one game...

At any rate, my own guess is that (a) the hot hand exists, but (b) its effects are overblown. Obviously we'd observe apparently "hot hand" phenomena even given random variation...but I just don't believe that that's all it is.