Should we blame NBA scheduling for poor starts?

[donemilio21]

I was wondering why we always start our schedule playing best teams in the league??
Why does NBA schedule it that way?

We lose the games we are expected to lose and with a 1-7 start now, everybody loses their concentration and suddenly its a lost season. Remember how we started last season too, I dont remember well but I think it was Suns, Spurs, Mavs and Jazz.

Check the 10 game schedule of us and the Kings which I randomly selected. We play with 7 teams which finished with more than 50 wins last season, while Kings start with 7 teams that finished below .500 last season (5 of them less than 30 wins) + post-Lebron Cavs.

Is this just our luck, or does NBA do this purposely?

Clippers schedule:
POR 50-32
GSW 26-56
DAL 55-27
SAS 50-32
OKC 50-32
DEN 53-29
UTA 53-29
NOH 37-45
SAS 50-32
DET 27-55

Sacramento Schedule:
MIN 15-67
NJN 12-70
CLE (no Lebron)
TOR 40-42 (no more Bosh)
LAL 57-25
MEM 40-42
MIN 15-67
PHX 54-28
DET 27-55
NYK 29-53

[Forte IV]

The Lakers start with an extremely easy schedule too. It seems as if some of the good teams start off with really easy schedules and instead of making the players less motivated it keeps the good teams' players extremely motivated.

[mkwest]

Us getting unfair scheduling is not really anything new for us. We usually are pretty high up the list with b2b games. We're like one off from being tied for first this season. I'll let you take a wild guess who has the least amount of b2b's. Even if we were improved and more competitive than we have been, our first 9 games were brutal. Our 11 straight road games in February is brutal. There's really no denying that. People can say "oh it all balances out in the end", which is not totally true. Everybody plays everybody a similar amount of times, but it's how the games are scheduled that can be a difference maker. On the flip side, we did start with a nice amount of home games, but couldn't capitalize on that.

If it were up to me, I would like to see a change in scheduling where the previous year's record is taken a little more into consideration and the strength of schedule is more balanced throughout the league. That would mean that the current format would have a notable change. I know that would be difficult, because you still have to factor in NBA, NHL, Award Shows, Concerts and other events from October to April. We are at a disadvantage of sharing an arena with 2 other teams that happen to be owned/partially owned by the owner of the arena, so we end up getting what is left over.

The only way to really combat this is to field a team that is good enough to overcome the schedule and win against quality opponents in spite of the conditions (i.e. no excuses).

[PerkinsFor3]

We should blame our trash team.

[lake_show]

I think its a combination of 3 things:
-The schedule
-Injury problems
-and the fact that this team still needs time to learn to play together and figure out an identity

This team has a lot of good peices but it still needs time to work out all the kinks and build some chemistry. And playing DEN, UTA, POR, NOH, OKC, DAL, and SAS twice in the first 10 games doesn't help.

[mattfish]

While the difficult schedule is demoralizing, our team is just not very good and we're once again dealing with the revolving door of injuries. At least we're getting exciting playtime from our young players, and it's starting to remind me of the old days of Odom, Q, and Miles!

[thanumba2clippersfan]

I knew coming into the season that it was going to be tough. I think it's a little unfair that we start out with a tough schedule, but the team has known what the schedule is since it came out. The Clippers have to come out and play their best ball. I do partially blame scheduling for a poor start, but we have been in some games and lost them in the second half.

It would help if we had an easier schedule to start to build our confidence, but we just have to deal with what we have at the time. No one is going to give us a break so we have to play threw it.

[Recently]

At least some easy games are on the way soon. If we don't start winning a few of these we should just totally blow it up and play all the young guys all the way. Dump kaman for some expirings, and baron for an espresso machine and some lawn chairs.

[playaloc916]

At least some easy games are on the way soon. If we don't start winning a few of these we should just totally blow it up and play all the young guys all the way. Dump kaman for some expirings, and baron for an espresso machine and some lawn chairs.

I feel the same way. A lot of the teams we faced are just plain better. Even if healthy, we probably weren't expected to win many of those games. What matters is that we are improving, and that means beating the weaker teams that we didn't beat last year.

If we still lose to the weaker teams, then we need to blow it up, because I don't think it will get any better with Baron and Kaman around. Kaman may still be alright to keep around, but Baron is almost like a lost cause at this point.