Layup Lines: NBA smartly reduces travel even more in 2022-23

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The NBA revealed its schedule for the 2022-23 season on Wednesday, and it gave us plenty of things to talk about.

The social videos released by individual teams were great — well, some of them. Conspiracy theories about Utah’s only televised game ran amok, and basketball bettors finally had something to salivate over as the season nears.

But the funny thing to me about all of this is, unlike the NFL, every team in the NBA plays each other at least twice, every season. And there’s 82 games. Outside of maybe Opening Day and Christmas, there’s nothing particularly interesting about the schedule release. But I did find one thing to be noteworthy:

Per NBA.com’s Mark Medina, the estimated miles traveled for the upcoming season has been reduced to 41,000 miles per team, a record low in the era of 30 teams and 82 games. That marks an estimated reduction of nearly 2,000 miles per team and a total of more than 50,000 miles from last season. They also increased the instances of no travel between games by 66%.

As talks of reducing the length of the season constantly come up, I’m encouraged that the league is still finding ways to reduce travel. I personally like the 82-game schedule, so anything the NBA can do to make that marathon easier on the athletes, I’m all for. In turn, it should help keep the players fresher and make the product even better.

As schedule releases go, I’m not particularly interested. But this is good news.

The Tip-Off

Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.

LeBron James signed a two-year, $97.1 million extension with the Lakers on Wednesday, putting an end to questions about his immediate future as he nears the end of his career.

Nobody really expected this deal to come now, but it actually makes a lot of sense. Our guy Sykes put together seven reasons why it was the right call by the King. Here’s one:

“Don’t get it twisted — this deal doesn’t mean James is a Laker for the rest of his career. Of course, he can be. But it’s not set in stone.

James has a player option in year two of his extension. It’s essentially the same sort of 1+1 deal James signed when he played for the Cavaliers. It’s a play for leverage and puts the Lakers right back in this situation they were in this summer next year with James’ future in the balance.

The ball is still in his court. That’s got big implications for something further down this list.”