The Denver Nuggets play their games a mile above sea level, and according to NBA general managers that makes for the second best home-court advantage in the league.
In the 2016-2017 NBA.com General Manager Survey, GMs across the league cast their votes for a medley of different projections heading into the season.
In this year’s installment of the survey, a few projections include the Golden State Warriors as the favorites to win the the NBA Finals, LeBron James as the frontrunner to be league MVP and the Nuggets owning the second best home-court advantage in the NBA — the Golden State Warriors ran away with first.
Since humans began playing sports in Colorado, the altitude has been a factor. Of course, there are pros and cons to playing 5280 feet above sea level, but the Nuggets have, for the most part, found a way to use it to their advantage.
Back in 2015, Chris Dempsey of The Denver Post gave readers a breakdown of the Nuggets’ home-court advantage, writing:
“A typical travel sequence can look like this: Team X plays at the Los Angeles Lakers on a Friday night. That game, a 7 p.m. local start, ends between 9:15 and 9:30. Showers. Interviews. Bus to plane. All of that takes two more hours.So, if you’re lucky, that plane takes off around midnight or soon thereafter. Then it’s two hours, 15 minutes to Denver. You lose an hour. So it’s after 3 a.m. when you land at Denver’s airport. Another 40 minutes to get the bus to the downtown hotel, and players’ heads are hitting pillows around 4 a.m.The game against the Nuggets is that night. Throw in altitude and a running Nuggets team … and you can see why opponents would want it eradicated.”
The Nuggets may have the second best home-court advantage, but they have been unable to post a winning record at home in each of the last two years.
Nuggets season tips off in just over a week, so let’s just see how much that home-court advantage pays dividends in the coming season.