It’s November and the season is in full swing. Most nights feature a full lineup of games – or usually at least more than one. For the average (or even slightly obsessed) fan, the task of choosing the right game on the right night can become a bit daunting. Choose wrong, and you miss out on the final moments of regulation that lead to a double-overtime extravaganza between the Thunder and the Magic. Choose right and you witness Steph Curry redefining greatness with a 53-point explosion against the Pelicans. In many ways, for the viewer it’s a game of minutes – and sometimes seconds. While this is certainly a good problem to have, it’s a problem nonetheless. So for you, Random NBA Fan Who’s Favorite Team I Don’t Know, I’ve created a schedule. A viewing guide, really.
To begin, we can use my still-refining, far-from-perfect-but-still-interesting League Pass Rankings. As a reminder, here were my preseason League Pass Rankings (with the full methodology here):
A quick note about these: don’t read these rankings as “where’s my favorite team on the list?” That was never the intention. Rather, the goal was: how do I maximize my $200 NBA League Pass subscription? That means it assumes you will generally watch: a) your favorite team; b) the nationally televised game. After those, how do you prioritize what to watch? That’s what these were designed to measure: the best of the rest that you now have access to.
Anyway, back to the matter at hand. That’s our start point. Second, there’s some ground rules to make November an NBA month to remember:
- Watch every team at least once.
- One game per night. Quality over quantity. For normal people, this is probably easy: you have a life outside of viewing basketball. However, for many of our readers (and authors!), not so much; so if you don’t have that balanced lifestyle, let’s just pretend you do. Further, let’s just assume you fully invest in one game per day, and anything extra is just filler. After all, this is a marathon, not a sprint: I’m asking for full commitment for a full month (followed by next month, the month after, the month after that…) – you may need to take some nights off. It will pay off in the long run.
- Try to watch the best match-ups possible. Seemingly duh, but it’s not that easy, given #1.
There’s 216 games from November 2nd – November 30th. So starting Monday night – here are the 26 games you need to watch:
Ok, that makes some sense. Fitting all 30 teams into 26 games in 29 nights takes some creativity. So even though Suns-Lakers may not top your list, it helps round out this tour around the league. In fact, the average team plays 14 games in November; in some cases (Chicago and Washington), it’s as few as 11. So the right game on the right night is tricky.
Incorporating two of Chicago’s 11 is pretty impressive, really. But don’t start at the bottom of this list and groan; start at the top and celebrate. Three games from new-look Detroit! Four games with the reigning Eastern Conference champs! Clippers-Rockets, Clippers-Warriors! Melo vs. Wade, Butler & Rose vs. KD & Russ, Boogie vs. KAT! These are some great match-ups.
Follow my plan and here’s how your schedule plays out:
Don’t be intimidated by the challenge; accept it head-out and it’ll be a great month. Also, before we get into Cavs-Sixers tonight, I need to give a shout-out to the NBA schedule makers – crafting this 82-game delight is clearly no simple task. Deconstructing it is fun, but painful.