Every basketball fan throughout their years of supporting their team will have interacted with enough fans of rival teams, whether in person or on social media, to have certain preconceptions of those fanbases as a whole. Due to the fact that most of these are negative preconceptions, have you ever stopped and wondered which fanbase is actually the smartest in the NBA?
Well, thanks to new research from Gambling.com, the Smartest Fans in the NBA have been ranked! By utilizing Hypeauditor to analyze the education level of the social media followers of every team in the NBA, coupled with the findings of “How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis” by Ritchie and Tucker-Drob which claims that for every level of education achieved you gain more IQ points, a weighted index was created which allowed the teams to be ranked in order of most to least intelligent on average in the following table:
| Rank | Team | No Education | Primary | Lower Secondary | Upper Secondary | Post Secondary | Index Score |
| 1 | Toronto Raptors | 0.60% | 7.40% | 18.20% | 49.30% | 26.40% | 8.827 |
| 2 | Dallas Mavericks | 0.90% | 3.70% | 14.20% | 53.70% | 27.60% | 8.616 |
| 3 | Denver Nuggets | 0.40% | 3.10% | 15.60% | 56.90% | 24% | 8.592 |
| 4 | Phoenix Suns | 0.10% | 3.30% | 16.40% | 54.60% | 25.30% | 8.589 |
| 5 | New York Knicks | 0.70% | 3.60% | 12.70% | 55.50% | 27.40% | 8.557 |
| 6 | Portland Trail Blazers | 0.90% | 3.80% | 14.40% | 54.40% | 26.60% | 8.543 |
| 7 | Atlanta Hawks | 0.70% | 3.50% | 14.10% | 55.70% | 25.90% | 8.506 |
| 8 | Los Angeles Clippers | 0.30% | 3.20% | 17.30% | 55.80% | 23.20% | 8.491 |
| 9 | Charlotte Hornets | 0.90% | 4.10% | 14.70% | 53.70% | 26.60% | 8.455 |
| 10 | Sacramento Kings | 0.20% | 3.80% | 19.50% | 53.10% | 23.20% | 8.449 |
| 11 | Utah Jazz | 0.90% | 4.30% | 16.50% | 53.20% | 25.10% | 8.360 |
| 12 | Indiana Pacers | 1.00% | 4.50% | 15.90% | 53.30% | 25.30% | 8.307 |
| 13 | Philadelphia 76ers | 1.20% | 4.30% | 15.30% | 53.90% | 25.20% | 8.237 |
| 14 | Detroit Pistons | 1% | 4.80% | 15.90% | 53.10% | 25.10% | 8.203 |
| 15 | New Orleans Pelicans | 0.80% | 4.20% | 17% | 54.80% | 23% | 8.196 |
| 16 | Miami Heat | 1.20% | 4.70% | 13.40% | 55.60% | 25.10% | 8.178 |
| 17 | Oklahoma City Thunder | 1.00% | 4.30% | 17.40% | 54.30% | 22.90% | 8.177 |
| 18 | Memphis Grizzlies | 0.80% | 4.30% | 17.30% | 54.70% | 22.70% | 8.166 |
| 19 | Milwaukee Bucks | 0.90% | 4.90% | 15.80% | 54.30% | 24% | 8.141 |
| 20 | Brooklyn Nets | 0.90% | 4.50% | 17.40% | 54.40% | 22.60% | 8.106 |
| 21 | Washington Wizards | 0.90% | 4.50% | 18.40% | 54.40% | 21.60% | 8.062 |
| 22 | Orlando Magic | 1.30% | 5.00% | 17.10% | 53.40% | 23.10% | 8.001 |
| 23 | San Antonio Spurs | 1.30% | 5.10% | 16.70% | 52.70% | 24.00% | 7.989 |
| 24 | Minnesota Timberwolves | 1.30% | 5.50% | 16% | 53.50% | 23.60% | 7.931 |
| 25 | Houston Rockets | 1.20% | 5.10% | 17.80% | 53.50% | 22.20% | 7.921 |
| 26 | Boston Celtics | 1.50% | 5.40% | 18% | 52.60% | 22.30% | 7.813 |
| 27 | Los Angeles Lakers | 1.90% | 6.40% | 14.40% | 51.40% | 25.90% | 7.801 |
| 28 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 1.60% | 6.10% | 16.40% | 54.00% | 21.80% | 7.662 |
| 29 | Chicago Bulls | 1.90% | 6.10% | 18.80% | 51.70% | 21.30% | 7.559 |
| 30 | Golden State Warriors | 5.10% | 10.80% | 19.20% | 47.50% | 17.30% | 5.868 |
The research revealed that the Toronto Raptors have the smartest fanbase in the NBA with an index score of 8.827, who are closely followed by Dallas Mavericks fans, who also have the highest % of followers with a post secondary education, and Denver Nuggets fans with index scores of 8.616 and 8.592, respectively.
On the other end of the scale are Golden State Warriors fans, who are ranked as the least intelligent fans in the NBA with an index score of just 5.868 and the highest % of followers with no education whatsoever.
If you’d like to read more about this research into the smartest fanbases in the NBA, you can read the full article here. at