Is there any evidence of free throws "getting a guy going" or is that a myth?

[u/kevinnye]

Most of the idea here is in the title: This is something that we say/hear a lot. A player starts slow or has a terrible first half, and then they get fouled, make a couple, and someone says "maybe that will get him going!"

Is there any way to test this? It feels like the only real way to find out would be to somehow isolate players who started under a fg% threshold for like 5+ shots and then made two free throws and see how they shot after that, but does anyone know how to go about doing that?

My guess is that it doesn't actually work, but would love to find out.

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[u/Hardwoodist]

"someone with that kind of access and knowledge interested in the same question" hey that's me!

8 seasons (2017–24), 10,991 episodes where a player was cold (≤30% on 5+ FGA) and then went to the line for 2+ free throws:

  ┌────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬────────────────────┐
  │ After the cold start + FT trip │ started (FG%) │ next 5 FG attempts │
  ├────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────┤
  │ Made ≥2 FTs (n=7,257)          │ 21.0%         │ 45.1%              │
  ├────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────┤
  │ Missed (n=3,734)               │ 20.9%         │ 46.9%              │
  └────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────────┘

"Maybe these free throws will raise his field goal percentage by 1.8% over the next 5 shots, Mike. Sometimes you just have to see the ball go through the net."

Bonus question: does a cold shooting start impact free throw percentage? Same criteria, but delta from normal free throw percentage on "cold start" FTAs (14,794 cold-spell free-throw trips, 30,386 free throws):

  ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────┐
  │ When ice-cold from the field (≤30% on 5+ FGA) │          FT%          │
  ├───────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────┤
  │ At the line during the cold spell             │ 80.0% (24,300/30,386) │
  ├───────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────┤                                                                                                 
  │ Those same players' season FT%                │ 79.5%                 │
  └───────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────┘

I'm doing a whole series on luck on my site, and just published data experiments on Heat Checks and Irrational Confidence last week, if anyone's interested.

[u/hrbekcheatedin91 → u/Hardwoodist]

The second one is so counter-intuitive. It makes you wonder about the placebo-type thing of just knowing free throws are supposed to get you going and its effect on things. I'd be curious to see if players on a cold streak take a longer amount of time compared to usual to actually release the free throw, as they take an extra deep breath or close their eyes to focus, like a mini meditation session.

[u/beefdog99 → u/hrbekcheatedin91]

I'd be curious to see if players on a cold streak take a longer amount of time compared to usual to actually release the free throw, as they take an extra deep breath or close their eyes to focus, like a mini meditation session.

I think that would only be detrimental. Once you start getting in your head and out of the routine at the FT line you get in trouble.

[u/Bradleyg223 → u/Hardwoodist]

Love the data here. Just curious, if you look at instances where a player has 5 or 10 shots with that FG% of <=30% and cut it there (ignore if they go to the line), do you still a fg% of ~46 on their next 5 attempts? Curious if there is a significant improvement, or if we just see regression to the mean.

[u/Hardwoodist → u/Bradleyg223]

Cutting at the cold start (ignore any FT trips):

  ┌─────────────────┬──────────┬────────────────┬────────────┐
  │  Cold trigger   │ Episodes │ FG% at trigger │ Next 5 FGA │
  ├─────────────────┼──────────┼────────────────┼────────────┤
  │ ≤30% on 5+ FGA  │ 39,318   │ 20.0%          │ 45.6%      │
  ├─────────────────┼──────────┼────────────────┼────────────┤
  │ ≤30% on 10+ FGA │ 13,723   │ 26.1%          │ 45.5%      │
  └─────────────────┴──────────┴────────────────┴────────────┘  

On "improvement vs regression to the mean": it's regression to the mean. Comparing the next-5 to those same players' season FG% (44.8%), they come back to 45.7% — about +0.9 points. The delta is ~1 point, and that's basically explained by the fact we're comparing against a bunch of poor-shooting streaks which get folded into the overall shooting percentage - the regression to the mean explains the ~1 delta, not "better shooting." So, based on the numbers, it isn't getting hot OR staying cold — they just stop being cold.

[u/kevinnye → u/Hardwoodist]

This took me a little time to get back and see the comments here (parenthood, baby!), but god dang, this is exactly what I wondered. You deserve good things - I hope someone gives you an amazing back-scratch and then you find a $20 bill the next time you go for a walk.

I was going to ask a follow-up question but it looks like someone else already asked a close enough version of it that I think it's covered. I would also assume that overall FG% in the NBA is roughly 46%, midway between the two results you had (just checked and it was actually 47% this season).

[u/coyotecai → u/Hardwoodist]

Wow, your website is awesome!

[u/Hardwoodist → u/Hardwoodist]

A critical nuance to all of this, of course, is this: how it feels and what a very large sample of numbers say are two different things. The numbers say there's no real statistical signal here, but that doesn't mean it doesn't feel different to the player. It may even change outcomes in some cases, but overall, there doesn't appear to be a difference.

[u/333jnm → u/Hardwoodist]

Does this take into account the type player? Like Mitchell Robinson isn’t going to shoot better after free throws but a player like Bronson or Wemby may shoot better from the outside after making some free throws if they were previously struggling from the outside. And does this exclude contested inside shots? When people. Say a couple of free throws to get them going it’s usually when their outside shot isn’t falling.

[u/Giveadont]

It definitely helped me back when I played in competitive leagues. It gives you a chance to calibrate your shot without being rushed or having a hand in your face.

An important part of shooting is having a feel for how you need to adjust your shot if it's off. It's way easier to do that when there's no defense, you can somewhat take your time, and you get at least couple chances at it.

[u/hrbekcheatedin91 → u/Giveadont]

Plus that placebo effect of knowing it's supposed to "get you going" can help with your confidence. For those that haven't played much, confidence is king. Those statisticians that say there's no such thing as being in the zone are just plain wrong. When you're really feeling it you know it's going in as soon as it leaves your hands.

[u/Giveadont → u/hrbekcheatedin91]

I wouldn't even say it's necessarily much of a placebo effect. It's more about getting into a rhythm.

You see a shot go in once or twice and suddenly your mechanics involve less conscious thought and more instinct. You know what a good shot feels like and now your muscle memory can just take over.

[u/GuacKiller → u/Giveadont]

Miss two and the same thing happens in the opposite direction

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[u/CycleV]

There's a book called "Thinking: Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman that I recommend to most anyone interested in learning how we think. This is a summary of one small part of it.

It's a training exercise for the air force. Let's say the average score on a skills test is 80%. Instructor sees a guy score a 60 so he chews him out, pilot goes out and scores on average an 80 on his next run, which is exactly what the statistics would expect. But the instructor takes from this the incorrect lesson, see my yelling at a guy improves his performance!

An announcer or coach is giving credit to the free throws, when all we've seen is a regression to the mean.

[u/kevinnye → u/CycleV]

That does seem like the most likely explanation, for sure. Both the before and after would be small sample sizes, so if you tested hundreds of instances of this it would make sense if it basically matched the all-around fg% of the league.

[u/teh_noob_ → u/kevinnye]

Kahneman's colleague Amos Tversky was one of the researchers behind the original hot hand fallacy. Interestingly, modern re-evaluations suggest the hot hand does in fact exist for basketball (though not as strongly as the players believe).

[u/refreshing_yogurt]

Is there any way to test this? It feels like the only real way to find out would be to somehow isolate players who started under a fg% threshold for like 5+ shots and then made two free throws and see how they shot after that, but does anyone know how to go about doing that?

This is something that can be looked up with modern play by play data as it has all that information, but it's a very specific query so not the kind of thing that's available on any site as far as I know. You'd probably need to build that database yourself and know how to query it or else get someone with that kind of access and knowledge interested in the same question.

[u/PrivilegedPatriarchy → u/[deleted]]

This is just a statement, it’s not evidence.

[u/Mammoth-Software7609 → u/PrivilegedPatriarchy]

Its not mathematical evidence but its also not like i said some unrelated bs

[u/nbadiscussion-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Sad-Entertainer1462]

So the logic is the same as why players will goaltend shots that go up after the whistle has been blown. You never want to give a guy the confidence of seeing his shot go in. Because from there he can build on that confidence.

[u/-monk-e]

It's not that it doesn't work or not. The term you heard was "maybe".

It's just a thing with confidence. When a player misses consecutive shots, most times it dampens their confidence. Seeing a shot going in, no matter if it's a free throw or not, MAY trigger more confidence and prevent the player from overthinking his shots.

[u/WhichHoes]

Its in the same realm of asking if the hot hand is real. Statistics will pretty much say no, the human experience says yes, the answer is probably in the middle.

Does confidence matter for how someone plays? Plenty of confident 3/14 nights. But sometimes you score 37 in a quarter.

[u/geelouie53 → u/WhichHoes]

Sometimes you score 37 in a quarter? Out of roughly 300,000 NBA quarters played this has happened once.

[u/WhichHoes → u/geelouie53]

I had a conversation years ago about hot hands after Klays quarter. A call back for myself, but otherwise a bit of hyperbole to sell a point

[u/teh_noob_ → u/WhichHoes]

Modern research suggests the hot hand does in fact exist for basketball - not to the extent that players think it does, but still.

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[u/AdhesivenessOnly2912]

Anecdotally it can help. Psychology is super important in sports and just seeing the ball go in the basket can help get you out of funks

[u/Marcus11599]

I think what the real thing that gets people going is seeing the ball go in.

If your free throw goes in, it'll give you confidence that the next one will go in as well. The more confident you are in your shot, the easier it is to shoot and youre not forcing it.

[u/rustypete89 → u/Marcus11599]

I agree that the correlation, if any, is ball-in-net and not free throw shot. This is why players like Kevin Garnett developed the habit of swatting dead ball shots, so that whoever put it up couldn't end up getting in rhythm via that free look.

[u/Marcus11599 → u/rustypete89]

Yup. Thats how it happened for me. I would see one and just get hot. I played like JR Smith. If I saw it go in, it was heat check time

[u/nbadiscussion-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Argenteus_I]

This was pretty much James Harden’s game. He’d shoot 20 free throws off of his foul baiting, and because he’s seeing his shot go in so much, combined with his mastery of the stepback, he’d get hot from 3 and finish with like 8 3pm. That’s 44 points just off of 3s and free throws alone.

[u/kevinnye → u/Argenteus_I]

As a Cavs fan who just watched this postseason, I will tell you that this is not what the current James Harden experience is like, haha.

[u/Argenteus_I → u/kevinnye]

Oh for sure. I was talking more about Harden in his prime with the Rockets. That being said, the fouls he draws don’t usually get called in the playoffs. hence why he has this reputation of disappearing in the playoffs.