Perspectives on the NBA's 2015-16 Schedule

Thoughts on the 2015-16 NBA Schedule

By Eric Goodman

The NBA released its 2015-16 schedule on Wednesday. And while these types of releases usually spur articles about high profile Christmas day matchups, this particular release was eagerly awaited by many in the analytics community in anticipation of seeing how the NBA would allow for more rest for players without expanding the number of days in the season (170 for at least the past three seasons) or decreasing the number of games played (82).

Scheduling issues got heavy press coverage last season (especially by ESPN, see here and here), perhaps because it was easy to point to the extended weeklong All-Star break and rabble rouse from that angle (in actuality this change only removed two days of games from the 170 day season, see footnote).[1] However, 2014-15 only saw marginal increases in both the number of back-to-back games and “four game in five night scenarios” from 2013-14, which suggests that the issue goes beyond just the extra padding at the All-Star break.  

At its core, the NBA’s approach to modifying the schedule was to drastically reduce the number of games in which a team had at least three days of rest (for example, a scenario in which a team played on Monday and then did not play again until Friday at the earliest). These extra days were then distributed in such a way that teams would have fewer back-to-back games, which de facto decreases the number of “four game in five night” scenarios, as these are always comprised of two back-to-backs in a five day period.

It is also important to remember that these changes are spread out among 30 teams. This means that on average each team in the NBA will play just under two fewer back-to-backs and one fewer “four game in five night” scenario (no team had more than four last season). While that may not seem like a drastic change, the NBA’s operations team certainly deserves kudos here for taking the players opinions into consideration and working hard to make meaningful and beneficial changes to the schedule that appear to provide benefit for both players and fans alike (the latter because no games were cut from the schedule, and less player fatigue equals better product on the court).

ESPN published their analysis of the new schedule almost immediately after the NBA released the schedule, an article which is certainly worth a read because of their formulaic approach to determining strength of schedule. That said, they understate the crux of the scheduling change, which is the drastic decrease in three-day rest scenarios – illustrated in the chart below (I go back one extra season to 2013-14). Additionally, the data in the ESPN article for both 2014-15 and 2015-16 is slightly off, and as such the data in chart below is from my own model (you can spot check this for yourselves – the Cavs only have 19 back-to-back scenarios this upcoming season, not 20 as listed in the ESPN article).

	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
Days in Season (including All-Star Break)	170	170	170
Days in Season (not including All-Star Break)	166	164	164
Back-to-backs	562	580	533
Back-to-backs, 2nd game away	384	409	369
Back-to-backs, both away	215	220	207
Four games in five nights	64	70	27
Total games, 0 rest	562	580	533
Total games, 1 rest	1,382	1,392	1,433
Total games, 2 rest	332	326	365
Total games 3+ rest	184	162	129

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[1] The 2014-15 season was the first in which the NBA scheduled in a six day break from games encircling the All-Star weekend (during which each team had at least seven days off) – this compared to a four day break during the 2013-14 season (during which each team had at least five days off).