Every year in the NBA off-season, there is a drought of news after most free agents have been signed, and trade rumors have either come to fruition or disappeared into the ether. Kevin Durant has kept things interesting this year by demanding the Brooklyn Nets trade him unless they fire coach Steve Nash and President of Basketball Operations Sean Marks. However, beyond Durant’s drama and Donovan Mitchell‘s potential move to the New York Knicks, much of significance will likely happen in the NBA world until the preseason starts.
That is precisely why the NBA releases the full schedule for the upcoming season every year around this time. The quest for more headlines and a year-round news cycle continues. As such, we continue to acquiesce to the requests of the almighty agenda setter, Adam Silver.
This year, the schedule release brings exciting news for the Timberwolves. One noble NBA analyst, Ed Kupfer, bravely crunched a bunch of numbers to bring the masses an estimated strength of schedule for every team in the NBA next season. The model inputs for Kupfer’s calculation were the strength of a team’s opponents based on Vegas win total estimates, days of rest for a team versus an opponent’s days of rest, and whether a team is home or away in particular matchups.
Here are the results:
Surprisingly, the Timberwolves sit at the top of the list with the easiest estimated schedule and an average expected points differential of over 0.2. The calculation and its results could change significantly if a player gets traded or injured, and Vegas’s estimated win totals change. For now, though, it’s worth celebrating that the Wolves have an opportunity to capitalize on a slight schedule advantage with what is likely the most talented roster in franchise history.
As a product of the strength of schedule calculation using Vegas estimated win totals, the top of the list is full of many teams you might expect. The Los Angeles Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Boston Celtics rank 2 to 4 on the chart. If you do a quick search, you’ll find that most sports books have each of these teams estimated to be top 5 in total wins, with some variation in order depending on the website. As a result, all of these teams should logically have one of the “easiest” schedules in the league because they are estimated to be significantly better than most other teams.
However, given that Vegas expects the Timberwolves to win between 47.5 and 48.5 games, putting them around 10th or 11th in estimated total wins, they are somewhat of an outlier on the chart. Logic would then follow that rest time and favorable home games, Kupfer’s two other model inputs, play a significant role in raising the Wolves to the top of the easiest schedule chart by his calculations. If they did not, the Wolves would rank closer to the 10th or 11th weakest schedule, below the teams expected to win four to seven more games than them. That’s good news for Wolves fans. They may have some actual advantages due to their scheduling this season. Thus, it seems worth examining how these factors may manifest within Minnesota’s schedule.
On The Crossover NBA Show, Howard Beck interviewed the Schedule Czars, aka three of the most important people responsible for crafting the NBA’s schedule, to get an idea of the process behind planning each season. The Czars noted that one of their recent focuses has been decreasing the average number of back-to-back games each team plays. Beck notes that the average team will play 13.3 back-to-backs this season, down an average of six per team since the 2014-15 season. Overall, this seems to have been a positive step towards mitigating injury risk and creating more competitive games. Teams tend to play better when they’re well rested, and they will have to hear fewer complaints about “scheduled losses” from fans.
According to Kupfer’s data, though, the Wolves aren’t benefiting from having fewer back-to-backs. They have 14 back-to-backs this year, putting them in the league’s top half and just above the average of 13.3.
Evan Wasch, the NBA’s Head of Basketball Strategy, provided an interesting explanation. “One thing we’ve heard on our relentless crusade to reduce back-to-backs is that by definition when you reduce back-to-backs, you are also reducing the number of instances where teams have 2 or 3 consecutive days off because the season is only so many days,” he says. Wasch also points out that those extended breaks “are typically when teams recharge, when they hold real practices as opposed to just walkthroughs and shootarounds. And so teams have told us [they] don’t maybe want a schedule with 10 back-to-backs on it and rare if any instances of two days off, and so I think collectively we feel like we’re at the right level.”
Given this feedback from teams, it seems that the Wolves may benefit from having a slightly above-average number of back-to-backs because it will mean they have more extended rest periods. They have several new players on their roster and could use all the practices they can get to learn how to gel together. Thus, one of the most significant factors benefiting their schedule this year may be the number of games the Wolves have this season in which they have more days of rest than their opponents.
The Wolves are tied for 6th on this list with 5 other teams, playing 21 games where they are more rested than their opponents. In comparison, the Bucks have 19, the Clippers have 18, and the Celtics have only 16. Three teams are tied at the top of the list with 23, while the Knicks are alone at the bottom with only 13. Additionally, the Timberwolves will only play 16 games in the upcoming season against teams with more rest than them, tying them for fifth-least in the NBA.
A caveat to this calculation is that you believe having spread out, longer rest times have a more significant impact on teams winning than back-to-back games. Wasch and the Czars believe it does, noting that the only thing that has a statistically meaningful impact on winning probability besides being the home team is “playing on back-to-back when your opponent is not playing on back-to-back. That impact is 5%.”
Regardless, it is tough to quantify how many wins that 5% and a weak schedule could add to the Timberwolves’ expected win total. Still, I am sure the team will be happy to accept any advantages they can get, no matter how slight they are. The pathway to being a top-4 seed in the Western Conference and having home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs is about as clear as it could possibly look for the time being.
