HANG TIME NEW JERSEY BUREAU – We don’t know all the details of the NBA’s proposal, but we know that the players have a decision to make early next week. And if they choose to accept the deal, we’ll have a 72-game schedule beginning on Dec. 15.
In the league’s news conference on Thursday night, Adam Silver said that the playoffs would be pushed back “roughly a week.” The original schedule ends on April 18, so the revised one would end on or about April 25. That gives the league 132 days to play 1,080 games.
Last week, we noted that a 72-game schedule that started on Dec. 1 and ended on April 30 would have the same pace as a standard, 82-game schedule that begins around Nov. 1. But when you remove 19 calendar days from that hypothetical 72-game schedule, you get a pace about equal to the 50-game, post-lockout schedule that was played in 1999.
And when you take away four days for All-Star Weekend (which was canceled in ’99), you have teams playing slightly more games per week than they did in ’99, when they played some back-to-back-to-backs.
Schedule pace
| Season | G/Team | Total G | Days | G/Day | Team G/Week |
| Normal | 82 | 1,230 | *166 | 7.4 | 3.46 |
| 1998-99 | 50 | 725 | 90 | 8.1 | 3.89 |
| 2011-12 | 72 | 1,080 | *128 | 8.4 | 3.94 |
* Subtracting four days for All-Star Weekend.
As we laid it out last week, a 72-game schedule allows every team to play in every arena at least once. Each team would play the 15 teams in the other conference two times and the 14 teams in their own conference three times.
There are obvious reasons for maximizing the number of games played in the available timeframe. With 72 games, the players would only be losing out on 12 percent (10/82) of their salary, and owners would only be losing five home games of revenue.
But if the players approve this deal, get ready for a schedule with very little time for practice or recovery from aches and pains.
