Players rejoice

The NBA 201718 schedule, released Monday, allows for plenty of player rest during the season,

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 and followed through on goals set by Commissioner Adam Silver:

uBy 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 of those; the league whittled it from 27 to 20 to zero.

uBack- to-backs have been reduced to 14.4 a team from 16.3 last season. A total of 57 back-tobacks were eliminated, and no team has more than 16 back-tobacks and no team has fewer than

13. In 2014-15, teams averaged

19.3 back-to-backs. uThe NBA protected 22 “marquee” national TV games in which 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 before the game. The games include the five Christmas Day games, all Saturday and Sunday ABC games and the three Martin Luther King Jr. Day games.

uESPN will televise 87 games, TNT 67, NBA TV 106 and ABC 17. The Golden State Warriors are on national TV 43 times, followed by the Cleveland Cavaliers and Houston Rockets at 40. The Oklahoma City Thunder have 36 games on ESPN, TNT, NBA or ABC followed by the Los Angeles Lakers at 35, Boston Celtics at 33, San Antonio Spurs at 32, Washington Wizards at 28 and Minnesota Timberwolves at 25.