I came across this piece on ESPN today, which pointed me towards a Harvard doctor who has a cool idea for eliminating some of the travel and the associated benchings that come with it.
NBA Schedule Alert
Open Letter to Adam Silver
His idea is simple, and it doesn't have any glaring holes.
Any team that plays another team 4 times in the same season has two home and two away games with that opponent. Instead of spreading these out, he's proposing that they play two seperate two-game mini-series. For example, the Spurs would play in Memphis twice this season. Instead of spreading them out, have the Spurs play both games back to back in Memphis (or even with a day off in between). Memphis would then play a similar two game mini-series at some other point in the season.
The common challenge with back-to-backs is the travel in between. Most back to back games are played Home/Away or Away/Home, so the team would need to play a game that likely ends around 10 PM local time, only to hop on a plane and fly home (or vice versa), miss getting a full nights sleep, and then play again the next day.
I really like this idea. There are only two holes I can poke in this, and I think they are minor.
1) Some arenas are not equipped to handle back to back games. There are hundreds of part time/seasonal employees to coordinate with, and a lot of them don't sign up to work consecutive nights, whether it be because they have other jobs or because it is a psuedo-retirement job, not a full time gig.
2) If a star player is legitimately injured at the time of one of these mini-series, they will have missed the chance to play a division/conference opponent twice, and in some of these playoff races, every head to head matters.
Anyone have other thoughts?
NBA Schedule Alert
Open Letter to Adam Silver
His idea is simple, and it doesn't have any glaring holes.
Any team that plays another team 4 times in the same season has two home and two away games with that opponent. Instead of spreading these out, he's proposing that they play two seperate two-game mini-series. For example, the Spurs would play in Memphis twice this season. Instead of spreading them out, have the Spurs play both games back to back in Memphis (or even with a day off in between). Memphis would then play a similar two game mini-series at some other point in the season.
The common challenge with back-to-backs is the travel in between. Most back to back games are played Home/Away or Away/Home, so the team would need to play a game that likely ends around 10 PM local time, only to hop on a plane and fly home (or vice versa), miss getting a full nights sleep, and then play again the next day.
I really like this idea. There are only two holes I can poke in this, and I think they are minor.
1) Some arenas are not equipped to handle back to back games. There are hundreds of part time/seasonal employees to coordinate with, and a lot of them don't sign up to work consecutive nights, whether it be because they have other jobs or because it is a psuedo-retirement job, not a full time gig.
2) If a star player is legitimately injured at the time of one of these mini-series, they will have missed the chance to play a division/conference opponent twice, and in some of these playoff races, every head to head matters.
Anyone have other thoughts?