Power ranking: The best 5 home crowds in the NBA

It’s often said that home court in the NBA has become overrated since travel methods have advanced so much. With that said, it can still be quite an experience for a road team to try and function while a raucous home crowd is dialing up the noise to a fever pitch. To that end, we’ll power rank the five best home crowds in the NBA.

Heading into the 2024 season, ESPN ranked the Kings’ Golden 1 Center the best arena in the league. While the facility ranks favorably in location, food and amenities, we think it’s the people filling the building that make the experience truly special.

Sacramento supports have set records for their ability to get loud. USA Today and many others covered their accomplishment of setting a Guinness World record for loudest noise at an indoor arena. Sporting News covered the traditional they started in the early 2000s, when they would bring cowbells to ARCO Arena to get on Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson’s nerves.

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There have been crackdowns on the permissions Kings fans have to bring cowbells into their home arena and into opposing venues, but the fanbase has galvanized itself around another recently established tradition. The Kings started lighting an actual laser-powered beam from the top of their arena during the 2022-2023 season, and fans now vociferously chant “Light the Beam” when they sense a victory is forthcoming.

Forbes believes that it’s been a process for Raptors fans to entrench themselves as one of the NBA’s gold standards, but that they had the blueprint for success all along. The passion and devotion to hockey’s Toronto Maple Leafs was eventually applied to the basketball team, and the team hasn’t looked back.

Former Raptor forward Tyler Hansbrough said on a podcast, “They don’t ever get the credit they deserve because they’re in Canada and you know, people associate the NBA with the United States. While Toronto might be out of sight and out of mind for many basketball fans, the legion of Canadian sport the franchise receives helps make the environment tremendous.

Raptors fans have leaned into the geography and the fervent dedication an entire country has for the team. “We The North” became the rallying cry that Campaign Canada’s website traces back to the 2014 season. It’s a tidy but powerful statement that bonds the fanbase, and is chanted during Toronto’s home games.

Brianna Kirkham perhaps put it best in a piece for My San Antonio’s website. She wrote Spurs fans have “the ‘it’ factor it takes to achieve and maintain an unshakable coolness. Other teams will say they, too, have this inexplicable aura that never leaves, even during rebuilding seasons or disappointing years. They’re either renting theirs or can only wish they had it.”

Of course, winning helps fans flock to the arena, and the Spurs have done a lot of that in the 20^th century. Consistency and familiarity have also helped build San Antonio’s exclusive home-court advantage. Air Alamo’s website writes that the community feels a strong connection to Spurs owner Peter Holt and his family, which makes games feel like a neighborhood gathering rather than a corporate event.

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Like some of the other best fanbases in the NBA, the Spurs also present a throaty, catchy chant that gets the team going. “Go Spurs go” is about as simple as it gets, but the crowd puts every once of vocal strength into it, which makes it audible even when fans are watching the game on television.

In a poll taken during the 2023 NBA playoffs, players voted Celtics fans as the best supporters in the entire league. According to Bleacher Report, one player said, “If you’re a competitor and you like playing on the road, you know everybody in the building is going to be like ‘expletive you’ or ‘I hate you.’ It’s always a good environment. Every time I’ve played there, it’s been like that.”

Celtics fans are extremely loyal to their superstars, and an example of this was borne out in November 2024 when Boston welcomed the Golden State Warriors into town. Warriors head coach Steve Kerr did not give Celtics star Jayson Tatum much playing time during the 2024 Olympics, and Kerr was greeted with a deluge of boos from the crowd.

Boston has a storied championship tradition, winning their 18^th title in June 2024. Their standard is high, but that’s what makes the scene remarkable. Larry Bird told Celtics Life about a 1986 Boston NBA Finals crowd, “They were going absolutely berserk, and this was an hour before the game… The place was rocking that night.”

Former NBA commissioner David Stern had to toe a fine line to make sure he was fair to all 30 clubs during his time at the helm. With that said, he admitted something in an interview with the Big East Conference years ago. “We’ve got some crazy fanbases all over but they’re about as intense as it comes in Utah.”

Sports Illustrated checked in on the temperature of the team in March 2024 when things weren’t going so well. They commented that while other fanbases might have checked out or rooted for their team to secure a higher draft pick, Utah supporters were losing their voices trying to inspire their team to victory.

Oddspedia ranked Salt Lake City as the second-worst city to visit in the NBA in February 2024. Charles Barkley called the city “boring”, and Shaquille O’Neal claimed he was unentertained during the 2023 All-Star Weekend. It’s those type of slights that Jazz fans have heard for years, but work extra hard to dispel during game nights.

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