There has been a lot of talk of player safety and injury concerns in the NBA the last couple of years because of so many stars suffering some horrific injuries. There's been a lot of research done suggesting that the number of back-to-back games as well as those four-in-five nights kind of stretches of games are detrimental to the players' health.
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The most recent injury to Memphis Grizzlies guard Mike Conley might be a good example and it's a big reason why coaches like Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr sit their best players for nights of rest rather than due to injury.
It seems that now the NBA is finally wising up and will try to eliminate the back-to-backs by starting the season earlier. The league's new collective bargaining could have language in it that would allow the league to schedule opening games more than a week earlier than normally pitched according to ESPN.
Here's ESPN's Marc Stein's report on all of the discussions:
League sources say there's a strong likelihood that the start of the 2017-18 season will be moved up a week to 10 days, which is yet another measure aimed at reducing the number of back-to-backs teams face over the course of 82 games.
We're hearing that opening night next season is likely to fall in the Oct. 15-20 range, which would be achieved by shortening the preseason schedule from its longstanding eight-game max per team to five or six exhibition games.
The 2016-17 NBA season, to cite the most recent example, tipped off Oct. 25. Starting a week-plus earlier would give the schedule-makers even more wiggle room to cut down on the number of back-to-backs and four-games-in-five-nights stretches clubs endure.
NBA teams are scheduled to play an average of 16.3 back-to-backs this season, down from 17.8 in 2015-16.
While the extra rest players will undoubtedly have from the stretched out schedule, there will still be some who miss games to get rest. However, when they play in that next level or do play in a back-to-back they should be fresher and teams won't be as likely to lose to a bad on the second night of those kinds of contests.
[h/t Yahoo]
