Meet XJ & GEOFF
Data Analysts. NBA Film Students. Basketball Obsessives.
XJ and Geoff started Hot Hand Theory in 2023 to bring a different kind of rigor to basketball analysis: one that combines behavioral science, professional gaming strategy, and genuine curiosity about what the game actually reveals when you dig deeper.
XJ brings a behavioral science lens to basketball analysis, studying how cognitive biases shape the way we watch and evaluate the game.
Xavier Justin, known as XJ, grew up in New York City with two obsessions: basketball and figuring out the most effective strategic approach to maximize results in anything he tackled. Back in 2003, he was running five-shooter lineups in NBA Live with the Seattle SuperSonics, putting Vladimir Radmanović and Rashard Lewis on the court together because the math on threes just made sense: even before NBA conventional wisdom said it did.
That analytical instinct led him to become an applied behavioral scientist, where he studies how people actually behave in the real world, how cognitive biases mess with our thinking, and how to design environments that nudge better decisions. When he turned that same lens on basketball, he found gaps in how the game gets analyzed and discussed.
XJ co-founded Hot Hand Theory in 2023 with Geoff to fill what felt like a missing piece in basketball media: analysis that combines rigorous thinking with genuine curiosity about what the game is actually showing us. He's driven by testing theories against reality and learning from the community that engages with our work.
Geoff brings a strong fusion of game theory, analytics, and film study.
Geoff Rasmussen grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida with a passion for all sports. Hockey and basketball in the front driveway or football in the side yard, nothing was off limits. When he wasn’t playing sports he was watching them. Ask Geoff who won the NFL MVP in 2001 or who played the Wild Card round of the 2005 MLB postseason and he’ll likely know the answers off-hand.
In school, Geoff had a strong affinity for mathematics which led him to follow in his older brother’s footsteps and become a professional poker player. For fifteen years Geoff was battling the world’s best and brightest poker players both online and across the globe in the live arena. The rigorous dissection of analytics, pattern recognition, and understanding of game theory have carried over to NBA analysis as it has become more nuanced.
But data is only a piece of the puzzle. And Geoff co-founded Hot Hand Theory with XJ in 2023 with a goal of marrying what the numbers say with what we watch when the games are played.
