Most players will tell you that the back-to-backs add up to more fatigue and more risk for injury. They have also become a marketing problem for the league, because coaches sometimes bench their stars for one of the games.
Just last week the Cleveland Cavaliers left LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love at home when the team visited the Memphis Grizzlies on the second night of a back-to-back. It was a disappointment to many fans who had paid to see the Cavaliers, the defending N.B.A. champs, at full force in the team’s lone trip to Memphis.
“I love the idea of less back-to-backs,” Larry Nance Jr., a Los Angeles Lakers forward, said Friday, “because we’re on one now, and I like the idea of not being on one.”
The Lakers were in Philadelphia on Friday for the first half of a back-to-back that was part of a seven-game trip. After defeating the Sixers, the Lakers took a late-night charter flight to Cleveland for their game against the Cavaliers on Saturday. Without D’Angelo Russell, who sat out after having played well against the Sixers, the Lakers lost.
In all, the Lakers are scheduled to play 16 sets of back-to-backs…
