Denver has a huge home-court advantage. I'm not talking about the arena or the fans. There were actually a pretty good amount of people wearing RED to the last matchup in Denver last month. It's all about the ALTITUDE. Seriously, I used to think it couldn't make THAT much of a difference. Sure, it might be a "little" tougher to play there, but nothing world class athletes couldn't handle. Well, earlier today at lunch I went to a gym and downtown Denver and played some pickup games. I'm not in bad shape, but not great shape either. But what i do know is that I got tired about twice as fast as I should have. Seriously, after three games (back to back, we won) I was getting really light headed and had to sit down and start chugging water. Back in Corvallis I could go for double that many and just be winded. As much as I'd like Portland to play Denver at some point in the playoffs (so I can attend the games), I don't want them to have to face those odds. I guess my whole point is that the elevation difference hits you much harder than I would have expected. On the flip side, I haven't noticed too many obese people (aka girls) here either, so at least there's one nice advantage to it all.
Wouldn't all teams struggle about evenly in Denver then? I can't think of any other teams that are based at high altitude. barfo
Yeah I thought this thread was going to have a different reason. I sort of thought the whole "hard to play an altitude" thing was common sense.
In the playoffs, opponents have more time to adjust. So the home court for Denver is worth more during the regular season than during the long, slow playoffs, IMHO. iWatas
I'm actually studying Exercise Physiology, and altitude is something we're talking about currently. I think you're overstating your conditioning. Improvements and adaptations in VO2 (amount of oxygen you can inhale and utilize with tissues) occur mainly for people who grow up in areas of high altitudes. The key is to be living there for the period that the person is developing. So even people who end up living in places for 20-30 years later in life don't experience much of an improvement, especially by comparison to people who grew up there. Furthermore, people who live there for a smaller time period (like an NBA career for example), experience very minimal improvements, if any at all. It's associated with the relationship of hemoglobin and oxygen and the ratio of saturation, and the heights we discuss are 4000+ meters at the very least. By comparison, "mile high" would be less than one half of that at best. So even if you would consider there to be a bit of a difference, the Nuggets haven't been there long enough, and didn't grow up there to make necessary adaptations to where they have a definitive advantage. Even if the Nuggets stayed in Denver all year (which they probably don't) and did hardcore cardiovascular training year-round (which they probably don't), they're too old for it to make a significant difference. Another factor is the training effect that these players have due to them being (theoretically) in shape. As a result, they wouldn't experience fatigue anywhere near in the same manner that you would (duh). Not saying you're completely out of shape, but people with trained cardiovascular systems shouldn't have that much difficulty. However, things that I could see them having an advantage in would result from more of a coaching and substitution pattern, and knowing how long individual players can last by comparison. Then again, that's something coaches should be able to notice anyway.
Funny thing is that despite the home court advantage, Denver really has never been a real powerhouse team. 0 championships. 0 NBA conference titles. 5 NBA division titles in 33 years. Overall a .473 win/loss average since joining the NBA. A below average franchise, when you think about it. Especially when you think about the built-in home court advantage.
Depends on the event, and if any improvement was made it would be very, very minor, but in the Olympics, it would make sense to try to gain an extra little bit. That 0.01 can become huge in certain events. It's actually bad for some depending on the races involved in.
Nah, but you've just discovered the reason Utah struggles mightily on the road - they can't play at low altitude. BNM
No, I meant odd. I don't know if it is a coincidence, a correlation, a causation, or even a confluence. Hence, it's odd to me.
fascinating but wouldn't training and getting that extra 1% be a factor in why they are better? the difference in many teams isn't that great and one percent could be the factor that pushes them over the edge at home. i also think it's a mental thing that visiting players think they have to combat.
Oh ok, so the US curling team doesn't train there. They train down at the Curling arena drinking beer.
