the pandemic has provided some interesting changes to study. one of those i was most interested in was seeing if the bubble removed a presume home court advantage in basketball games. here's the data...
Looks pretty even huh? There are some players with better home (blue) than away (red) free throw performance but it's not clear cut. When we run the data through a python script we get some interesting results!
For the top 10% of players by total play time, players score ~.9 free throws per 36 minutes on the court for home games and ~.88 for away games, showing a slight advantage to being home.
After the bubble, players scored ~.89 free throws per 36 minutes at home and ~.91 while away. So there was a change!