Do Denver Nuggets really have an altitude advantage over other teams? Statistical deep dive into their home performance

The Denver Nuggets play their home games at Ball Arena, where they've consistently performed well. Before the 2023 NBA Finals, the Nuggets hadn't lost a single game at home in the playoffs, which shows how dominant they are on home court.

Ball Arena is located at 5,280 feet, making it difficult for opposing players to adjust to this elevation. The Mile High City has its perks, and playing in this arena is certainly one of them, just not for the other 29 NBA teams.

The Nuggets have always had a good home record, irrespective of whether they were championship contenders or not. Let's dig deeper into the stats and how just how big of a homecourt advantage they have.

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The Denver Nuggets have won more than 65% of games at home

In 47 years in the NBA, the Denver Nuggets have a 1,235-659 record at home, which is a 65.2% win percentage. Overall, the Nuggets have only had five seasons with this percentage or better.

To put the Nuggets' homecourt advantage into perspective, the team is only 662-1231 on the road. In other words, they've won only 35.0% of games on the road.

Denver's win percentage at home comes down to approximately 26.6 wins per season, while it only averaged around 14.3 wins on the road throughout its history.

The Denver Nuggets have the best homecourt advantage in the NBA (Image via Getty Images)

The Denver Nuggets have an 1897-1890 record since the NBA-ABA merger, yet most of these wins have come from their home games.

Let's take a look at some other teams whose all-time records are around .500 and check their win percentage at home and on the road.

• Indiana Pacers (1883-1903) - 62.4% home, 37.0% road
• Dallas Mavericks (1747-1714) - 59.2% home, 41.7% road
• Chicago Bulls (2344-2254) - 61.3% home, 40.6% road
• Atlanta Hawks (2891-2964) - 62.8% home, 36.4% road

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We've excluded historically dominant teams from the list, such as the San Antonio Spurs or LA Lakers, since their home records have been consistently great. However, the Nuggets have performed well at home even when their overall record hasn't been great.

Denver had a negative record on the road in the 2022-23 season (Image via Getty Images)

In the 2022-23 season, the Nuggets were 34-7 at home and 19-22 on the road. In the 2017-18 season, the Nuggets went 31-10 at home, but only won 15 out of 41 games on the road.

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There are many other instances of the Nuggets having a much better record at home than on the road. Even in the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, which was the second-worst season in the team's history, the Denver Nuggets were 12-13 at home and 2-23 on the road.

Considering that the Nuggets will stay in Denver for the foreseeable future, they should be able to maintain their decent home record.