>and play better. The thing is, what is this study determining
>as a cluster? A single game or a single season?

My impression was that it's shot by shot. So obviously a player might do better from one season to another. But one shot is no more or less likely to hit than the one immediately preceeding it, statistically. Obviously in the real world something or other may affect a shot. A minor hand injury, for example.

>I don't think its a case of 'hot hands', but human
>beings are affected by a large number of variables so its only
>natural to assume the stats they produce are non-random.

Interestingly, if you add enough variables the system becomes chaotic and the results become as unpredictable as the weather. It's not quite accurate to say that it's random (I don't think... could be wrong), but chaos and randomness are often indistinguishable.