With the start of the 2023-24 season right around the corner, I decided to look at how far each team is scheduled to travel throughout the season (roughly). I say roughly as we have the new in-season tournament this year so we don’t have the full schedule due to the unscheduled knockout rounds. This means the analysis is incomplete, nevertheless, you can find a summary table of the total distance each team will roughly travel.

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Rank	Team	Total Distance (km)
1	Los Angeles Clippers	80,882
2	Brooklyn Nets	75,512
3	Portland Trail Blazer	73,356
4	Denver Nuggets	72,600
5	Minnesota Timberwolves	72,371
6	Sacramento Kings	72,364
7	Miami Heat	70,038
8	Golden State Warriors	67,646
9	New Orleans Pelicans	67,262
10	San Antonio Spurs	66,931
11	Boston Celtics	66,895
12	Los Angeles Lakers	66,846
13	Memphis Grizzlies	66,582
14	Phoenix Suns	65,665
15	Orlando Magic	65,568
16	Oklahoma City Thunder	65,030
17	Dallas Mavericks	63,994
18	Philadelphia 76ers	63,435
19	New York Knicks	62,671
20	Utah Jazz	62,593
21	Cleveland Cavaliers	61,513
22	Atlanta Hawks	60,691
23	Houston Rockets	60,554
24	Chicago Bulls	59,218
25	Washington Wizards	58,378
26	Charlotte Hornets	57,840
27	Milwaukee Bucks	55,456
28	Detriot Pistons	54,302
29	Indiana Pacers	53,480
30	Toronto Raptors	52,411

Each distance is calculated from stadium to stadium along a line of minimum distance. It’s also assumed that a team will only travel from one game to the next, so everyone sleeps at the stadium until they’re set to play their next game - no going home (or anywhere else) between games (sorry teams!).

For example, the Lakers play the Nuggets on opening night, so their travel distance is from their home stadium to the Nuggets’ stadium (1,337 km). In the analysis, the Lakers will stay at the Nuggets’ stadium until the next game, where they travel directly from the Nuggets’ stadium back home (1,337 km). The total distance travelled is 1,337 + 1,337 = 2,674 km and so on and so on until we get the above numbers.

I’ve also made an interactive dashboard in Tableau where you can dive deeper into the distance analysis at the link below. If you enjoy it and fancy helping me out, nominate it for “Viz of the Day” using the little ribbon button in the top right of the dashboard.

NBA Schedule 2023-24 Dashboard

TL;DR The Clippers are scheduled to travel the furthest total distance (80,882 km) this season with the Raptors scheduled to travel the least (52,411 km).