Thunder set for extended stays in L.A.
The Thunder will play in five back-to-back sets on the road next season, but two of those barely qualify.
Oklahoma City will take on the Clippers and Lakers at Staples Center on consecutive nights twice in the 2019-20 season, a luxury the Thunder didn't have on any back-toback last season.
That scheduling trick is part of the NBA's effort to improve the schedule. This year, Monday's schedule release revealed that the league had succeeded again, with an emphasis on limiting backto-backs and late national broadcasts.
“One of the reasons that we were able to accomplish this was an issue of time,” Evan Wasch, NBA senior vice president of basketball strategy and analytics, told Bleacher Report's Howard Beck on The Full 48 podcast.
“That we were much more efficient with our process, had so much buy in from the teams, with our network partners, that we can move through different stages of this process more quickly, which allows for that time for the computer to go find the better possible candidate schedules and allows for us to have the time to go tweak them and finalize them the way we need.”
The Thunder is scheduled to play 13 back- to- backs ( five road/road, six home/ road and two home/ home), which is on the high end for teams this season, and one more than OKC played last year. But the no-travel back-to-backs help alleviate wear and tear on players.
Overall, the NBA cut the number of back-to-backs to an average of 12.4 per team. That's down from 13.3 last season. The NBA has reached all-time back-to-back-set lows in each of the past five seasons. Just before then, in 2014-15, teams averaged 19.3 back-to-backs each. This year, the league also eliminated stretches of four games in five days for the third straight season.
The NBA put a new emphasis on moving up game times for national television doubleheaders. But because the Thunder is scheduled to play just two games on ESPN and one on TNT and none on ABC, that adjustment affects basketball fans in Oklahoma more than the team.
The concentration of star power on the West Coast — LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard and Steph Curry all play for California teams — helped incentivize the reduction of 9:30 p.m. CT start times.
Last season, 57 doubleheaders tipped off at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. CT on ESPN and TNT, with the second game usually finishing past midnight in the central time zone. This coming season, only 33 doubleheaders on those two networks are scheduled that late.
The Thunder's lack of nationally televised games naturally cut down on 8 and 8:30 p.m. tipoff times at Chesapeake Energy Arena. The only late home games remaining are Jan. 9 against Houston (8:30 p.m. on TNT) and Jan. 19 vs. Portland (8 p.m.), the second night of a back-to-back. *** 2019-20 Thunder back-to-backs Oct. 27-28: Golden State, at Houston
Nov. 9-10: Golden State, Milwaukee Nov. 18-19: at L.A. Clippers, at L.A. Lakers
Dec. 8-9: at Portland, at Utah Dec. 26-27: Memphis, at Charlotte
Jan. 6-7: at Philadelphia, at Brooklyn Jan. 17-18: Miami, Portland Jan. 24-25: Atlanta, at Minnesota Feb. 27-28: Sacramento, at Milwaukee March 3-4: L.A. Clippers, at Detroit March 17-18: at Memphis, at Atlanta
April 4-5: at L.A. Clippers, at L.A. Lakers
April 10-11: N.Y. Knicks, at Memphis