What can we learn from the release of the first half of the 2020-21 NBA schedule?
In a typical season, there is little difference in schedules for teams within the same conference. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this season's schedule is a little different.
First, we're getting only half of the schedule for now, which means it will be a bit more imbalanced before the latter half is added.
Second and more important, the NBA has adjusted the schedule to reduce travel. This is meant to both facilitate playing through a pandemic and apply the lessons learned with teams playing at the same site on the ESPN Wide World of Sports campus during the conclusion to the 2019-20 season.
What's new this season? And what is the strength of schedule for each of the NBA's 30 teams? Let's break it down.
'Series' reduce travel
One of the most noticeable changes to the NBA schedule is a number of "series" between teams in the same conference. In these cases, two teams play consecutive games in the same city, similar to the typical series between teams in baseball. For instance, the Miami Heat play the Philadelphia 76ers in Philly on Jan. 12 and 14.
Although the NBA opted not to reduce the number of games against the other conference in order to minimize travel, there's still the opportunity to travel only once to face an opponent in the same conference two times. All told, there are 72 games scheduled for the first half of 2020-21 in which the road team is in the same city as the previous game -- mostly playing the same opponent.
By contrast, the original 2019-20 schedule (including games that were never played because of the postponement of the season) featured just 25 such games, all of them in either Los Angeles or New York City, where teams could play one of the two teams in the metro area one game and the other the next.
Additionally, in part thanks to these series, the NBA has also lengthened homestands for teams. The original 2019-20 schedule saw teams travel back home from the road before 47% of the games they hosted. That's down to 37% of home games during the first half of the 2020-21 schedule.
Combine those two factors and the 2020-21 schedule produces far fewer games with travel between them. Teams are scheduled to travel in between 62% of their games, including those at home as well as those on the road, down from 72.5% in the original 2019-20 schedule.
Back-to-backs up
Because the NBA is trying to fit 72 games into a regular season lasting more than a month less than the league's typical 82-game schedule, inevitably the focus in recent years on reducing back-to-back sets had to be relaxed.
During the original 2019-20 schedule, about 15% of all games were played with zero days of rest -- that is, as the second game of a back-to-back set. Per the NBA's communications department, that was a record low. Over the first half of the 2020-21 schedule, that ticks up slightly to 18.7%, which is still down from where it was before the NBA began attempting to reduce back-to-backs.
Intriguingly, the NBA has tried to limit back-to-back travel as much as possible. Nearly all the increase in back-to-backs can be traced to scenarios in which teams play both games at home -- historically a rarity because of the belief that it depresses attendance. With many teams playing in front of no fans at all to start the season, that's no longer a concern. So there are 66 home-home back-to-backs scheduled for the first half of the 2020-21 season, compared with 48 on the full original schedule for 2019-20.
We'll also see several road back-to-backs being played as part of series to eliminate travel. In fact, 20% of all back-to-backs with both games on the road will be played in the same city.
Strength of schedule
Here's the place we should note that, in the midst of a pandemic, all of these games should be on the schedule in pencil rather than pen. We've seen already in college basketball how difficult it is to plan games, because a single positive COVID-19 test can potentially sideline a team for more than a week based on contact tracing.
NBA players will be afforded more opportunity for isolation off the court than college players, particularly on campuses with students attending classes in person, but the NFL's experience has shown that's not sufficient to keep COVID-19 from penetrating the roster in the first place.
For now, however, let's evaluate the strength of teams' first-half schedules using my 2020-21 NBA projections based on ESPN's real plus-minus.
In addition to the caliber of the opponent, I've also factored in a home-court advantage of 2.0 points per game, which might overstate things without full crowds (or any fans at all in many locations) in the stands. Last, I've applied a penalty of 1.4 points per game to teams playing a back-to-back based on my research into the impact of playing without rest.
Based on that, here's how teams rate in terms of schedule strength from hardest to easiest.
Typically, the two dominant factors in a team's schedule strength are its conference (since teams play within the conference more frequently than against the opposing one) and the team's own ability (since teams can't play themselves).
Because the schedule is broken up into halves, the other factors like home/road split don't completely balance out in the 2020-21 schedule we've gotten so far. The Toronto Raptors appear to face a particularly difficult schedule, presumably backloaded in terms of home games in case the Canadian government approves the Raptors to return to Toronto midseason.
Beginning the season in Tampa, Florida, will also hurt the Raptors from a travel perspective. Per data generated using the Airball R package, Toronto ranked 22nd in terms of most air miles traveled between games during the full 2019-20 schedule. Over the first half of the 2020-21 schedule, that jumps to third most behind the Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Utah Jazz and Dallas Mavericks are two other likely playoff teams that seem to have unusually difficult first-half schedules. On the flip side, the Orlando Magic could get off to a more favorable start thanks to a schedule that's frontloaded with home games against relatively weak competition. Orlando has the league's easiest projected schedule, far easier than those of other playoff hopefuls in the East.
We'll find out exactly how much things even out when the NBA releases its schedule for the second half of the 2020-21 season shortly before the midseason break in March.