Home Court

I seem to have nominated myself to be the official statistician of the AG-Hoopz Zone (not surprisingly as my first access point to sports was a love of all of the NUMBERS involved) so, while I work on a fuller analysis of the up-at-the-half question, I pose a new one. Almost all of the teams in the NBA have a better record at home - but which teams really are more likely to win at home?

7 teams who are SIGNIFICANTLY better at home (using a simple chi-square test comparing home performance and road performance for those who are interested).

(1) The Washington Wizards of Washington
Home Record: 17-3 (0.850)
Away Record: 7-13 (0.350)
Difference Home WP - Away WP = 0.500

(2) BEE-drins Warriors from the State of Golden-ness
Home Record: 15-8 (0.652)
Away Record: 4-14 (0.222)
Difference Home WP - Away WP = 0.430

(3) Cavs
Home Record: 15-3 (0.833)
Away Record: 9-13 (0.409)
Difference Home WP - Away WP = 0.424

(4) Those Teasin' Bulls
Home: 17-6 (0.739)
Away: 6-12 (0.333)
Dif: 0.406

(5) The LA Not-Lakers
Home: 14-7 (0.667)
Away: 5-14 (0.263)
Dif: 0.404

(6) The LA Lakers
Home: 18-4 (0.818)
Away: 8-11 (0.421)
Dif: 0.397

(7) The Seattle Mocha-Grande Sonics
Home: 12-9 (0.571)
Away: 4-16 (0.200)
Dif: 0.371

Many other teams also have a differential - but there is a big drop off at between the Seattle team and the team with the next highest difference (the Grizzlies for anyone who is interested, who have only won twice on the road all season). Also, for all of these teams there is less than a 5% chance that the proportion of wins observed on the road and the proportion of wins observed at home are drawn from the same sample of games (i.e. the fact that some are on the road and some are at home matters for these proportions).

A few notes on these results: It is striking that winning on the road is so hard for teams in the Pacific Division. For those people who live in the Pacific Division (ahem) I was wondering if you could offer any insight into why this might be. Are the fans in Cali more excited than elsewhere?

Also - it is striking how high up both the Wizards and the Cavs are on this list. Both teams are led by a SUPERSTAR who is beloved by the fans at a fevered pitch. I guess that the LAKERS are the same way (though no the rest of the teams on the list?). Is it easier to rattle a those teams on the road because the fans can direct all of their attention at just one player?

I think, mostly, having a big differential between performance at home and performance on the road bodes really poorly for a playoff team. I would feel more confident with a 6th seed who was 22-19 at home and 22-19 on the road than a team who is 29-12 at home but 15-26 on the road.

Thoughts?

simon