Just read this and was fairly put off by the seeming 90% fluff and romanticism of it. Was wondering if any mathematicians either read it or otherwise have an opinion about its validity.

It does splice some, good enough I guess, between trials we control/influence and those we don't.

The book is all over the place, yes, no, yes, no ... the "hot hand" exists, no it doesn't. Even claims bukoos of literature both ways. It then claims to be establishing it once again as valid in last chapter by uncovering a serious statistical mistake in much of the previous research. Then it bases much of its new conclusion, "yes on the hot hand, a real thing" ... based on All-Star Game 3-point shooting contest results, once misinterpreted, now reinterpreted.

This seemed rife for misleading data interpretation to me because no other shooting is such rinse and repeat from the same place continually undefended ... so the zoning in on the thing is a separate skill, not a fair test of the normal "hot" thing. This probably occurred to me because once, after not having played hoops for about 15 years, I stood on a court and made 17-20 from the 3-point line (college distance). I would describe it as "locked in," I had the repeat stroke as a golfer might say ... but that isn't the hot hand phenomenon really I don't think as generally defined.

If you read the just the last chapter of the book (on van Gogh's "hot year," earleir on Shakespeare's "hot streak," etc. etc. hoops stuff mixed all in, some roulette, the Curry revolution, all kinds of junk) you will see the final idea he arrives at. Well it looks legit now ... there has been a grave probability error in all the earlier publications ... with a dozen or so math geniuses sighted in the erroneous studies no less.

I just gotta sell.