Basketball training influences shot selection assessment: a multi-attribute decision-making approach

Abstract

In spite of the fact that shoot selection is a crucial ingredient of performance in basketball, the judgment and decision making processes involved in it have been largely neglected. In the present work, we explore individuals’ strategies to assess the adequateness of shooting (in a simulation laboratory task) in situations varying in the degree of physical defensive pressure, rebound, defensive balance and shooting distance.

Our results showed that the four target dimensions have an impact on participants’ judgments. More importantly, training influences the degree to which one of the non-obvious dimensions (defensive balance) is taken into account by participants in order to make their judgments. These results stress the necessity to develop measures of shot selection decisional quality beyond scoring rates.