NBA Strength of Schedule: How Much Does Travel Distance Matter?

All data comes from the good folks from Positive Residual.

The Minnesota Timberwolves will travel the most throughout the 2024-25 season, by 1,013 miles. The Timberwolves have to travel 49,937 miles this season, which is far more than the league average of 42,098 and 7,839 miles fewer than Minnesota’s treks!

The Timberwolves are the second-most easternly team in the Western Conference, behind Memphis. But the Grizzlies are more south, which means they can reach the three Texas teams very easily, along with the four California teams. The closest teams to Minnesota are Chicago and Milwaukee, who are both in the Eastern Conference. There are rumors that the Timberwolves could move to the East, once the NBA expands in the next few years.

Next are the Portland Trail Blazers at 48,924 miles, and like the Timberwolves, Portland is isolated, but in the Pacific Northwest. Their closest teams are the California teams, and Utah. If the NBA decides to expand and put a team back in Seattle, Portland has a ready-made rivalry!

Three California teams are next with Sacramento (47,504 miles), Golden State (46,181 miles), and the Los Angeles Clippers (45,664 miles). The Clippers might feel aggrieved by the schedule-makers, as they have to travel 2,332 more miles than the Lakers, despite the two arenas being about 12 miles apart!

All five of the teams on this list of NBA travel distance reside in the Western Conference. That’s something to keep in mind and most likely a factor in the NBA betting sites’ odds.

The Toronto Raptors have the shortest travel itinerary this season at 34,981 miles, which might surprise some as the Raptors are in Canada. However, Toronto is actually further south than Minneapolis, Minnesota, and not that much more north than Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee!

Toronto is also a reasonable distance from the two New York teams, as well as Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. However, the Raptors might to spend a little more time going back and forth through customs in each city.

Detroit is next at 35,015 miles, and the Pistons’ home is only about 230 miles away from Toronto. The Washington Wizards are third in fewest miles traveled at 35,441 miles, while Charlotte sits at 36,078 miles. The Hornets are the southernmost team among the bottom five in NBA travel distance, but in terms of miles, they’re actually closer to New York than they are to Miami! The distance to Toronto is only about 20 miles more than Charlotte to Miami.

The Philadelphia 76ers have an NBA travel distance of 37,890 miles, and they’re right in the middle of New York and Washington, D.C., while Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, and even Milwaukee, aren’t that far away.

Just like the list of teams that travel the most, the teams on this list are from the same conference. But the teams that travel the most are all Western Conference teams. The teams with the shortest NBA travel distance are all Eastern Conference teams. Simply put, the eastern portion of the United States is simply more congested than the western part of the country.

Do Total Distance and Rest Days Affect NBA Results?

Now it’s time to determine whether travel distance and rest days affect NBA team totals betting. We will take a look at average numbers for all metrics listed so far and try to check if there’s a potential correlation to the under/over regular season wins market.

You would expect NBA teams with tough schedule to underperform and vice versa. Let’s see if that will truly be the case in 2024-25. We will explain how everything works here and come back to update the post when the regular season is over.

Here are the averages from the five metrics we examined for NBA strength of schedule and NBA travel distance:

• • Average Miles: 42,098
  • Average SOS: 0.512
  • Average RA: 10.3
  • Average RD: 10.3
  • Average B2B: 14.9

If you look at the averages for each team, for each metric, you can deduce that these teams are on the good end of the schedule (the second column shows their win total line before the start of the season):

All of these teams are below the average mean in at least three of the five metrics we’ve looked at. While we wouldn’t recommend betting only based on that, it’s one of the factors to consider. Obviously, there are many more.

For example, potential injuries can pop up during a season. This NBA campaign has been especially bad for injuries as many big names have spent time on the sidelines already, for example, Orlando’s Paolo Banchero, Boston’s Kristaps Porzingis, and Miami’s Jimmy Butler.

However, the schedule is a good start point of picking these teams to go over their NBA preseason win totals. This is especially true of Boston and Oklahoma City, who are the favorites in this season’s NBA title odds.

The remaining 20 teams are on the bad end of the schedule, as they have higher-than-average numbers over the metrics. However, every team on this list can’t go under their projected win totals, so this is where additional research, and especially watching the games, comes in handy when looking for NBA betting tips.

For example, Memphis has an over/under of 47.5, and they’re on the bad end of the schedule. They’ve also missed star guard Ja Morant in the early part of the slate. You’ll have to take this into account.