The “Brutal” NBA Schedule
Posted 8/07 at 9:19 AM
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The NBA schedule was released yesterday and already I’ve seen multiple stories lamenting teams’ brutal schedules.
The Grizzlies popular fan blog, 3 Shades of Blue, said, “This year’s schedule is best described as tough.”
The Houston Chronicle refers to Houston’s schedule as “brutal early.”
Lastly, Mike Barrett said about the Portland Trail Blazers schedule, “One word describes the first six weeks of the season- brutal. I don’t mean kind of difficult, I mean brutal. You’ll understand what I mean when you see it, and I’m sure you’ll agree.”
Here’s the problem I have with all of this talk about different teams having tough schedules. The NBA probably has the fairest system involved regarding the schedule. College teams pick the majority of their schedule. Pro football teams don’t have to play every other team in the league.
Every team plays the teams from the opposite conference two times (one at home, one on the road). Every team plays the teams in their division four times (two at home, two on the road). Then, of the 10 teams remaining teams in your conference, you play six of them four times, and four of them three times. So, the “hardest” schedule you could have would be to play the four worst teams in your conference only three times, instead of four. For that to happen, you can’t have any the worst teams in your division (including your own team).
Now I understand that back-to-back games are considered the worst, and usually the 2nd night of these games is especially tough. But a good team will fight through the excuse that comes from playing back-to-back games. The San Antonio Spurs, the premier franchise of the past decade, have to play a long road trip each February thanks to their home being used by a rodeo. This season they have an 8-game road trip in February as part of playing 11 out of 12 games on the road. Do you think the Spurs are complaining about their schedule? Does this make it “brutal?”
The bottom line, as always, is that teams have several stretches throughout the season where the schedule is tougher. There’s going to be some parts of the season when you’re on the road more than you’re at home. There’s going to be some parts of the season where you play more playoff teams than lottery teams. There’s going to be parts of the season where you play a lot of games in a short amount of time. But the schedule, for the most part, resolves itself. There will be stretches where your team is at home more than on the road. There will be parts of the season where you play more lottery teams than playoff teams. There will be parts of the season where you get more rest.
So go ahead and look at your team’s schedule and start calling it tough, or brutal, or whatever you want. But I look at the schedule and I see 41 home games and 41 road games. I see the Eastern Conference teams on it twice, and I see division opponents on it four times. You can slice it up any way you want it, but it looks easy enough to me.
Posted 8/07 at 9:19 AM
“This season (the Spurs) have an 8-game road trip in February as part of playing 11 out of 12 games on the road. ... Does this make it ‘brutal?‘“
Does it make their schedule brutal? No.
Does it make their Feb brutal? Yes.
Yes, schedules even out. It doesn’t mean a team can’t look at March and say, “Wow. That’s gonna be a tough stretch.”
Great article.
any other team probably has an eiaser scheduale than us but, it shows since we are rebuilding that we can get compition in their for the good of our team.