Each week during the 2024-25 NBA season, we’ll delve into some of the league’s biggest stories in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more on fact or fiction moving forward.
(Last week: Under the rise of Evan Mobley, the Cavaliers are contenders again)
Fact or fiction: home field advantage is dead
The home NBA team won 60% of its regular season games between 2000 and 2013, clear evidence of home field advantage. That number fell to 58% for the first time this century in 2014, when teams first averaged more than 20 3-point attempts per game, and remained stable around that figure until late last decade, when the pandemic of COVID-19 19 uncovered a new understanding of the home field advantage.
Understandably, the number fell to a new low (54%) during the 2020-21 season, when stadiums were mostly empty. With the exception of the 2022-23 campaign, when it rose again to 58%, the figure has remained steady at 54% since then, including this season, as teams’ 3-point attempts have increased on average above of the 35 per game. Which begs the question: Is home-field advantage all but dead?
Whichever team made the most threes in a given game has been a much better indicator of who actually won. The team that makes the most three-pointers wins about 67% of the time, and that number has largely held true over the last decade. (At the turn of the century, the figure was closer to 60%, the same as home field advantage.)
This season, it hasn’t mattered where the teams play. Home teams are 39-19 when they score the most three-pointers; visiting teams are 36-20 when they make the most three-pointers. You’re not necessarily more likely to make more threes if you play at home. However, this is not true in past seasons. Over the previous five years, home teams won 71% of the games in which they scored the most three-pointers; Visiting teams won 62% of them. So the home field advantage still exists, and we should expect this season’s numbers to find those levels again as the sample size increases.
The interesting thing: those numbers were maintained during the pandemic. So maybe it’s not the crowds that matter; Maybe it’s being physically at home (in a familiar place, sleeping in your own bed) that matters.
Determination: Fiction. Home advantage still exists, but not in the way previously thought.
Bonus Fact or Fiction: Here’s an Aspect of the Game to Exploit
That aforementioned 71% is what my colleague Tom Haberstroh might call a large number.
In theory, the seven teams that average 15 or more three-pointers per game (Celtics, Hornets, Warriors, Timberwolves, Bulls, Cavaliers and Suns) should defeat the 10 teams that average 12 or fewer three-pointers per game (Grizzlies, Pacers, 76ers, Pistons, Pelicans, Magic, Trail Blazers, Kings, Lakers, Raptors). In fact, those seven best-shooting teams are 18-4 against the other 10, including an 11-0 record at home.
But higher shooting teams are more successful because they are better.you might think. (If they are better because make more triples is a question we will address in the future). How, then, does that explain Charlotte and Chicago, two sub-.500 teams that are 4-1 against those other 10 teams?
Take the Brooklyn Nets, who are terrible but rank sixth in 3-point attempts per game (40.1), ninth in makes (14.4) and are off to a surprising 4-4 start. They were sizable underdogs to Memphis in a couple of recent games: one at home and one on the road. And they both won outright, scoring more three-pointers each time.
Now, if you’re a gamer, you might be surprised at this point. If you are more likely to win by making more threes, you are more likely to shoot a higher percentage at home. and They’re more likely to win at home, so maybe there’s something in picking, against the spread, a home team more likely to make more 3-pointers.
Unfortunately, bookmakers have adapted to this trend. That 18-4 record we mentioned earlier is 12-10 against the spread (6-5 at home). Winning 55% of the time is pretty good if you’re in the gambling business, but a sample of 11 home games is too small to rely on. Something worth monitoring though.
Determination: Fiction? At least until tonight, when we put this to the test for Pacers-Hornets. Indiana, which ranks 27th in 3-point attempts and 22nd in makes, is a seven-point favorite on the road against Charlotte, which ranks second in both 3-point attempts and makes. Gamble responsibly, my friends.
