Commissioner Adam Silver focuses on player rest, health with new NBA schedule

In a 1,230-game NBA season, the league made significant changes aimed at giving players optimal rest and focusing on player health over six months.

The NBA on Monday released its full schedule that begins on Oct. 17 with Boston at Cleveland and Houston and Golden State and ends with a 12-game night on April 11.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and his staff have focused on player rest and health.

• By starting the season one week earlier, the NBA eliminated scenarios in which teams play four games in five nights. Four seasons ago, there were 70 such scenarios and the league whittled it from 27 to 20 to zero.
• Back-to-backs have been reduced to 14.4 per team, down from 16.3 last season. A total of 57 back-to-backs were eliminated, and no team has more than 16 back-to-backs and no team has fewer than 13. In 2014-15, teams averaged 19.3 back-to-backs.
• The NBA protected 22 “marquee” national TV games in which participating teams will not be involved in a back-to-back or five games in seven nights scenarios and no team will have traveled more than 3,500 miles in the seven days prior to the game. These 22 games include the five Christmas Day games, all Saturday and Sunday ABC games and the three Martin Luther King Jr. Day games.
• This season, the NBA is labeling the schedule by week, starting with Week 1 and ending with Week 26.
• ESPN will televise 87 games, TNT 67, NBA TV 106 and ABC 17.

Golden State is on national TV 43 times followed by Houston at 40 and Cleveland at 39. Oklahoma City has 37 games on either ESPN, TNT, NBA TV or ABC followed by the Los Angeles Lakers at 35, Boston at 34, San Antonio at 32, Los Angeles Clippers at 31, Washington at 28 and Minnesota at 25.

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