It is an undeniable reality in the NBA that not all schedules are created equal, even though every team plays the same opponents.
Every season, 30 teams have to play 82 games in a six-month span, with matchups against every other team in the Association. That is a lot of games to plan, even before taking into account the dozens of other factors that go into the process. The league tries its best to make every team’s schedule even in terms of rest time and how many back-to-backs they have to play, but there’s no perfect way to do so. It’d be nice if every team was able to play every game after an off day or enjoy multiple days of rest after long plane rides, but the math doesn’t work out that way. The games must be played, and some of them are going to be played under suboptimal conditions—whether it’s playing three games in four days, battling through a back-to-back on the road or a five-game week.
