NBA True Home and Road Court Advantage:
As a bettor, I have always found that one of the most important factors in analyzing teams’ strengths in basketball is determining how much each team should be assigned in their games based on being at home or on the road. There are really only two ways to do this, in my opinion: a standard designation or a team-specific assignment. Obviously, I prefer the latter, as it is my belief that there are specific performance trends that warrant treating each team individually, both from a theoretical and actual numbers standpoint. After all, there are environments that are tougher than others across the league landscape.
For those of you out there who like to keep things simple, you should know that in his latest ratings, Jeff Sagarin proclaims that the average home-court advantage in the NBA is about 3.0 points. In studying the numbers over the past 2-1/2 seasons, I have found it to be quite lower, specifically 2.08 points. My own home and road court ratings reflect that number and they are built into the Strength Ratings that you see on VSiN.com in the matchup pages.
The way I see it, we almost have to do the team-specific method as bettors because there are many reasons why certain teams have more definitive home court advantage than others. Among these are crowd capacity/enthusiasm, the quality of the team playing there, the style with which a team plays, and even the distractions available to teams while visiting. That last one seems to be a bigger issue in the pros than it is in college. I’m sure you can think of other factors, but one thing is certain—there is no way that every team’s advantage is the same.
Judging home court edges as equal across the board can lead to mistakes and missed opportunities, or even worse, losses. For instance, the amount of variance I assign for the 30 NBA teams is as high as 1.2 points, and for those of you regularly playing the NBA, you know how close the final scores can come to the point spreads, so each point is important.
To determine which teams hold the best True Home and Road Court Performance in the NBA, I have taken the teams’ game logs at home since the start of the 2022-23 season, or essentially the last 2-1/2 seasons, and have compared their average power rating in those games to their opponents’ average power rating, using my actual logged numbers during that span for every game. This margin would be considered the amount they should have won or lost by when meeting on a neutral court, or the expected margin. I then compared this amount to the actual point differential that the team accumulated in those games. Obviously, the teams that had a greater actual differential than expected differential played the “best” at home or away. For NBA teams, the margins went as high as +7.0 for Oklahoma City to -0.2 for Miami at home and as high as +0.3 for New York to -4.9 for Denver and Milwaukee on the road.
Keep in mind that all of these studies include the adjustments I make for injuries and scheduling situations as well.
Of course, you would not want to assign a home field edge of 7.0 points to the Thunder at home, as that could put you in a bind for future games. However, you should respect OKC any time it plays at home until things change noticeably. Similarly, you wouldn’t want to “discredit” Miami for playing at home, but considering the Heat have been more than 2 points worse than the average home team in recent years, you wouldn’t want to assign a standard NBA home-court advantage number either.
In general, using the average closing line for the last 2-1/2 seasons indicates that bookmakers will assign about 2.05 points in an NBA game to a home team. Again, my exact number averaged out to 2.08. However, due to the fact that the home point spread cover rate on that average -2.35 line has been 50.1%, the number 2.1 seems like a strong number to use as the baseline for my own home and road court average ratings.
One important thing to note, I don’t specifically assign my own home and road court ratings exactly with the order of the True Ratings, as I also give strong consideration to the straight up and ATS records, as well as the perceived difficulty of playing at a particular venue. I have also added a new feature to the chart you’ll see below, and that is Forecast Value. This is a figure that the computer spits out for a team’s forecasted true home/road court value, which takes into account more recency.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the highlights of the study. Following each set of highlights, you will see the leaguewide chart for the NBA showing the True home and road court performances I have uncovered as well as their straight up & against the spread records.
ONE IMPORTANT NOTE: These performance studies only include regular season games of the last 2-1/2 seasons, with games through Tuesday, 2/11.
NBA Home Court Performance Study Highlights
– The team with the highest true home court performance rating over the last 2-1/2 seasons is Oklahoma City, at +7.0. The Thunder would actually have been expected to win their 109 home games in that span by 3.8 PPG if played on a neutral court, yet are winning them by 10.8 PPG, producing an advantage of 7 points. Denver (+4.6), Memphis (+4.0), Boston (+3.8), and Orlando (+3.9) round out the five top NBA home-performing teams.
– The Celtics and Nuggets actually share the best outright winning percentage of any team at home in this study, having gone 85-23 for 79%. That ranks slightly ahead of OKC, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, all of whom have won 74% of their home games since the start of the 2022-23 season.
– The Celtics have been expected to win by the greatest amount according to oddsmakers and have played to the largest point spreads of any team at -9.8, thus the reason their true rating isn’t as high as the top three in true performance.
– OKC’s 69-39 ATS record during the 2-1/2 years of this study is the league’s best among teams, good for 64%! Orlando, at 65-42 ATS (61%), is the only other team better than 60%.
– The Thunder’s 121.7 PPG and Indiana’s 121.5 PPG top the league ranks in terms of PPG scored at home during the study. Orlando’s 108.2 PPG and Cleveland’s 108.3 PPG allowed are the high benchmark scoring figures in home games since 2022-23 BOY.
NBA Home Court Performance Study Lowlights
– The team with the lowest true home court performance rating over the last 2-1/2 seasons is Miami at -0.2. The Heat would actually have been expected to win their 105 home games in that span by 1.5 PPG if played on a neutral court, but are only winning them by 1.3 PPG, thus producing a disadvantage of 0.2 points. No other teams are without positive ratings, but Sacramento (+0.3) and Washington (+0.3) are close.
– The Pistons actually own the worst outright winning percentage of any team at home in this study, having gone 30-78 for 28%. That ranks below Washington and Charlotte among teams at 30% or below.
– The Hornets & Wizards have been expected to lose by the greatest amounts according to the average point spreads, +5.8 and +5.3 for each, respectively.
– Miami’s 41-62 ATS record during the 2-1/2 years of this study is the league’s worst. Minnesota, Sacramento, Atlanta, and Washington are the only other teams at 42% or worse.
– Charlotte’s 107.9 PPG scored and Washington’s 119.6 PPG allowed are the low benchmark scoring figures in home games since 2022-23 BOY.
NBA Road Court Performance Study Highlights
– The team with the highest true home court performance rating over the last 2-1/2 seasons is New York, at +0.3. The Knicks would actually have been expected to win their 70 road games in that span by 2.7 PPG if played on a neutral court, yet are winning them by 3.0 PPG, meaning being on the road actually benefits them 0.3 PPG. Interestingly, the last time I did this study two years ago, the Knicks were #1 then, as well. No other teams are in positive territory, but Minnesota, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Cleveland are all better than -1.0.
– The Celtics actually own the best outright winning percentage of any team on the road in this study, having gone 74-36 for 67%. That ranks well ahead of New York at 60%.
– The Celtics have also been expected to win by the greatest amount at -6.2, according to those setting the odds, thus the reason their true rating not being as good as the Knicks. Playing as better than a 6-point road favorite on average is a massive number by NBA standards. In fact, it’s at least 3.4 points higher than all 29 other teams.
– New York’s 62-44 ATS record during the 2-1/2 years of this study is the league’s best. Sacramento, at 61-46 ATS, is the only other team better than 53%.
– Golden State’s 116.9 PPG scored and Miami’s 108.5 PPG allowed set the standards for scoring figures in road games since 2022-23 BOY.
NBA Road Court Performance Study Lowlights
– The teams with the worst true road court performance rating over the last 2-1/2 seasons are Denver and Milwaukee at -4.9. This is a tough one for public bettors as they typically love road favorites, and both teams have played to lines of -2.3 or higher on average on the road. However, both teams have been outscored in their road games in that span. Be careful with these oddsmaker darling teams when they hit the road the rest of the way. If you’re curious about the Forecasted Value numbers on the chart below, the Bucks figure of -6.3 shows that they are also trending downward. Not a good sign for that playoff hopeful.
– The Spurs actually own the worst outright winning percentage of any team on the road in this study, having gone 27-79 for 25%. Washington and Detroit are next in line at 26%.
– The Pistons are the team that has been expected to lose by the greatest amounts according to the odds maker number, playing as underdogs of +8.8 points on average.
– Two teams share league-worst ATS percentages of 42%, those being Atlanta and Milwaukee.
– Orlando’s 107.0 PPG scored and Utah’s 121.1 PPG allowed are the low benchmark scoring figures in road games since 2022-23 BOY.
Take a look at the NBA home and road chart below and form your own conclusions.
