During the regular season of the NBA, the great Larry Bird made 3,960 free throws out of 4,471 attempts for a career free throw percentage of 88.6%. As of March 21/11, British Columbia’s own Steve Nash is the current all-time NBA leader with a success percentage of 90.4% based on 2,794 made free throws out of 3,091 attempts. We are interested in whether Nash is really better than Bird, or whether the percentage discrepancy is due to natural variation.

a) Propose a statistical model, and discuss whether it is adequate.

b) State relevant hypotheses, calculate a p-value and provide a conclusion.

Question

During the regular season of the NBA, the great Larry Bird made 3,960 free throws out of 4,471 attempts for a career free throw percentage of 88.6%. As of March 21/11, British Columbia’s own Steve Nash is the current all-time NBA leader with a success percentage of 90.4% based on 2,794 made free throws out of 3,091 attempts. We are interested in whether Nash is really better than Bird, or whether the percentage discrepancy is due to natural variation.

a) Propose a statistical model, and discuss whether it is adequate.

b) State relevant hypotheses, calculate a p-value and provide a conclusion.