Mud and stone replaced caves or sleeping under the stars and attachment to 'home' changed forever.
Sports reflects society with campaigns of Protect the House, The House of Pain, and even throwbacks to The Jungle. Talk of escaping science and biology is cheap compared with actually succeeding at it.
According to Harari, by the first century A.D. farmers (in dwellings) outnumbered foragers (clustered in remote areas like Australia), 250 million to one million. Protecting the house meant protection from the elements, neighbors, wild animals, and inconvenient guests like ants, roaches, spiders, and beetles.
Good teams traverse a four-stage process - beating bad teams at home, bad teams on the road, good teams at home, and finally winning against good teams on the road.
The top NBA clubs separate themselves by their ability to win on the road and the best win over three quarters of their home games. Unique advantages like altitude help explain Denver's home record...again reflecting biology. It's not psychological. Maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) decreases at higher altitudes.
Not surprising, training at altitude improves exercise performance experimentally.
How much advantage exists in NBA houses? Bettors care.
We can debate the effect of crowds, travel, officiating, familiarity (lighting, court conditions), and more, but most prefer playing at home. But cherish the special feeling to silencing the opponent's house with a dominating performance. In the Showtime documentary (2013), Alabama Hall of Fame guard John Hannah (1970-1972) said USC's dominance was so great that you could hear the vendors, "Coke, here."
Lagniappe: Advantage-disadvantage is a core practice principle.
Our perspective is to always disadvantage best players. Either by fewer of the best or more of the “not best yet”- we’ll often go 5v8 fc or 4v5 hc https://t.co/nWOSvJYpY4— Principled Basketball (@JohnRaff1) September 23, 2019