Basketball travel data and methodology

Machine-readable data

The same current-season measurements shown on the travel boards are available as public JSON. Responses identify the league and season, state every unit, include the source update time, and link each team back to its canonical travel page.

What the mileage represents

Hoops Menu measures the great-circle distance between the venues of consecutive scheduled games, using arena latitude and longitude. It is a schedule model, not a flight tracker: it does not know a team's actual airport, routing, practice stops, or charter path.

The first game of a season has no preceding game and therefore adds no travel leg. A return home counts when the next scheduled game is at home; an assumed trip home after the final game is not added. Neutral-site games use their scheduled venue when it can be resolved.

Time zones and rest

Time-zone change is the UTC-offset difference between consecutive game venues at the later game's tipoff. The league board sums the absolute value of those changes so eastbound and westbound travel do not cancel each other out.

Days of rest are the full local calendar days between games. Two games on consecutive local dates are a back-to-back. Dense windows are detected directly from the schedule: three games in four days, four in six, and five in seven.

Road trips and scope

A road trip is a consecutive run of road games between home-game segments. The full-season board includes regular-season games and league cup group or knockout games that live inside the main season calendar. Preseason, All-Star, exhibition, and playoff games are not part of the regular-season travel rankings.

“Played to date” and “still to come” split individual games at the current time. A schedule-density window or road trip moves into the played bucket only after its final local date has passed.

Sources and corrections

Schedules and team identity originate from the NBA's public stats feeds. Arena coordinates, time zones, and shared-building home bases are maintained by Hoops Menu. The derived tables are rebuilt when schedule data changes; each board and JSON response exposes the most recent source update time.

Questions or corrections can be sent to hello@hoopsmenu.com.