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

Key Insights

• No clear correlation between travel distance and results: there was no correlation between travel distance covered and regular season results, based on the 2025-26 NBA data.

• Teams in Western Conference travel more: Western Conference teams traveled an average of 47,296 miles vs. 40,936 for the East. The bottom 12 teams in travel distance were ALL Eastern Conference.

• Adding context should produce better results: it should be noted that injuries, sudden rise of specific players, tanking, load management, and other factors play a big role in the NBA regular season. We didn’t account for them in this article, but you should if you plan on targeting NBA over/under bets.

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 schedules to underperform, and vice versa. Let’s see if that will truly be the case in 2025-26. We will explain how everything works here.

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

• • Average Miles: 44,116
  • Average SOS: 0.499
  • Average RA: 10.1
  • Average RD: 10.1
  • Average B2B: 14.3

If you look at the averages for each team, for each metric, you can deduce that these teams were 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 was already off to a tough start as big names are injured, and perhaps, for the entire season. Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton, and Portland’s Damian Lillard did not see the court this season! However, Boston’s Jayson Tatum came back from his Achilles injury. Still, there were a number of other injuries throughout the campaign, and “load management” was a major topic.

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 Oklahoma City, who are still the favorites in this season’s NBA title odds after romping through the NBA last season.

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, Denver had an over/under of 53.5, and they’re on the bad end of the schedule. But they’ve also improved their team, especially bench depth. They also have an advantage of playing at the Ball Arena in Denver, which is 5,289 feet above sea level. That altitude has proven to give the Nuggets an edge on the opposition!

Most Travelled Teams

Four of the top five teams in NBA travel distance made the playoffs, although two teams needed to make it in via the play-in round. Teams are now traveling on luxury charter flights, so it isn’t exactly like players are crammed onto a bus going from city to city anymore.

It is worth mentioning, however, that three of the teams finished below .500 on the road, and two of those teams were in the play-in round. Memphis may be an outlier, as they had a rough season.

Ja Morant was mostly injured, while the team traded Desmond Bane to Orlando and Jaren Jackson Jr. to Utah. NBA travel distance probably didn’t have much to do with how bad they were on the court.

Least Travelled Teams

On the other end of the NBA travel spectrum, two of the least traveled teams missed the playoffs: Indiana, Chicago, and Charlotte. But Indiana didn’t have Tyrese Haliburton all season due to an Achilles injury and shingles. Chicago was just a bad basketball team that traded away Coby White to Charlotte, Ayo Dosunmu to Minnesota, and Nikola Vucevic to Boston.

Two teams got into the play-in, Philadelphia and Charlotte, with the 76ers making it through to the first round, while the Hornets lost in the final phase of the play-in. Cleveland rounds out the bottom five. But three of the five teams finished above .500 (Philadelphia, Charlotte, and Cleveland).

Most Back-to-Back Games

These six teams played the most back-to-backs in the NBA, although it should be said that all 30 teams played between 13 and 17 games on no rest. Both Denver and Miami played 17 back-to-back games and had a combined 24-10 record.

Three of the four teams that played 16 back-to-backs were below .500 in those games: Golden State, Phoenix, and Washington.

Least Back-to-Back Games

Only one of the three teams that played 13 back-to-backs finished above .500, as Boston was 8-5. Indiana and Atlanta went a combined 9-17, but Atlanta managed to make the playoffs. Indiana could have had a week’s rest between games and likely ended up with a record worse than .500.

Team Win Total vs. Actual Record

Of the ten teams that we deemed to be on the “good” end of the schedule, it was split down the middle on whether they hit their preseason win totals.

Five teams hit the over: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Detroit, and Oklahoma City. However, it should be said that Charlotte and Detroit had massive one-season swings, and played well above expectations. As did Boston, as many thought it was a down year because of the Jayson Tatum injury. Atlanta made their big run after trading Trae Young.

On the other side, Houston fell just a half-game short of their preseason win total. Chicago and Cleveland came up just short, finishing under their projected win total. The other two teams were Indiana and Memphis, who, again, could play on Mars and have bad records this season.

All data comes from the good folks from Positive Residual, as well as ChatGPT.

It should also be noted that there were three international regular-season games:

• Dallas Mavericks vs. Detroit Pistons – November 1, 2025 (Mexico City, Mexico)
• Memphis Grizzlies vs. Orlando Magic – January 15, 2026 (Berlin, Germany)
• Orlando Magic vs. Memphis Grizzlies – January 18, 2026 (London, United Kingdom)

The Magic are the second-most southern team in the NBA, as Miami is further south. However, the Heat only have to travel 45,892 miles this season, which would place them 12^th in the rankings for most miles traveled. Meanwhile, the Magic lead the league in NBA travel distance at 54,279 miles.

Next are the Portland Trail Blazers at 52,841 miles, and the Memphis Grizzlies at 51,563 miles. This kicks off a trend, as the Magic are an Eastern Conference team. There are actually no more Eastern Conference teams until the Heat at 12^th, as Western Conference teams rule the top of the rankings. However, remember that Orlando and Memphis both have to head to Europe, which bumps up their NBA travel distance.

The top five in the NBA last season in terms of most miles traveled were all Western Conference teams. Portland was second to Minnesota last season, and now, they’re second again, having to travel from the Pacific Northwest.

The Timberwolves (49,937) drop from first to fourth, while the defending champions from Oklahoma City (49,245) are next. Every team will have the Thunder circled on their calendar, and they also have to battle a brutal travel schedule.

So, keep this in mind when you’re looking at win totals at NBA betting sites. Western Conference teams, largely, have a tougher travel schedule.

Four 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 when the bookies work on their odds on certain NBA bets.

The Indiana Pacers faced the shortest travel itinerary at 35,278 miles, followed by Philadelphia at 36,743 miles. In fact, the bottom 12 in miles traveled are all from the Eastern Conference. Geographically, this makes sense, as cities are much closer together in the eastern part of the United States. Charlotte (37,195 miles), Chicago (37,482 miles), and Cleveland (37,926 miles) round out the bottom five.

The Hornets are the southernmost team in the bottom five of NBA travel distance, but they’re closer to New York than they are to Orlando. Just like the list of teams that travel the most, the teams on this list are from the same conference.

But the teams that travelled the most are from the West, while teams from the East dominated the bottom five. We don’t get to a Western Conference team in NBA travel distance until the Los Angeles Clippers (42,956 miles) at #13!