The Arizona Republic » looked at the Suns' schedule and more specifically the number of back-to-backs that Mike Budenholzer's men will have to play. It turns out that Phoenix is in the high average, with a total of 16. The first will take place in the second game of the season with a trip to the Lakers' court on Friday, October 25 and the reception of the Mavericks the following day for the Suns' “Home Opener”.
Ten other teams are in the same case (Atlanta, Cleveland, Denver, Houston, LA Clippers, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Washington). There are ten others at 15 (Brooklyn, Charlotte, Detroit, Memphis, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Toronto, Utah), three teams at 14 (Golden State, Indiana, Minnesota) and finally six teams at 13, including the Lakers, the two finalists of the previous season (Boston and Dallas) as well as Chicago, Orlando and Portland.
An ever-increasing challenge
Even if we can see a certain lack of fairness there, the NBA justifies itself by the fact that producing a schedule with an equivalent number of “back-to-backs” for each team is simply impossible to conceive, given the constraints of availability of each venue or the requirements of the broadcasters.
“We are trying to reduce the number of back-to-backs for each team while trying to keep the overall gap fair and competitive.”said Matthew Barresi, the NBA's senior manager for broadcast network scheduling. “The number (of back-to-backs) for each team varies based on scheduling constraints, such as venue availability, NBA Cup, national TV broadcasts, weekend games, etc. etc. Since this season's schedule was more restrictive than ever, more teams are in the upper portion (21 of 30).”
The NBA is indeed very careful to ensure that this gap is not too large between teams, and it has remained stable for three years, between 12-13 and 15-16 per team.
The league also strives to place as many “back-to-backs” as possible in the same city, for trips to New York or Los Angeles, or between teams that are geographically close to reduce the distance. These “no travel” are another way of playing on fairness, for teams that are disadvantaged in terms of quantity.
“Ten years ago, we had teams that played twenty back-to-backs, and very few of them, if any, had what we call “no travel,” meaning two games in a row at home, Los Angeles-Los Angeles, or New York-Brooklyn. We didn't allow that in the schedule at that time.”added Matthew Barresi, specifying that approximately five “back-to-backs” per team are now combined in this way. “It’s either the same city, LA-LA, or even a Golden State-Sacramento. It’s just a short bus ride, no plane. It’s almost not a trip.”
The New NBA Cup Puzzle
The NBA Cup, however, complicates its task since the league has imposed specific days in the week for the group stages (Tuesday and Friday evening). It is also necessary to plan for possible additional matches for the qualified teams whose number of “back-to-backs” can then fluctuate. Last element: no match in this new competition must be played on the second match of a “back-to-back”, if “back-to-back” there is.
“They'll still be on the first games. So that's another restriction that we have to add to our schedule, more to make sure that our teams and their players would be fresh for the NBA Cup games.”for his part underlined Gene Li, vice-president of the department in charge of the calendar distribution network.
Which explains this very slight increase in “back-to-backs” on average this season (14.9 against 14 in 2023/24), then that the NBA was trying to reduce them in previous years.
