NBA Schedule 2016-17: 5 toughest schedules
By John Buhler
With the NBA releasing the 2016-17 season schedule for all 30 teams, here are the five squads that stand to have the hardest time with their respective slates.
On Thursday, the NBA released the full, 82-game schedules for all 30 franchises. While some squads are good enough to navigate their season schedules regardless of who or where they’re playing, there are a handful of teams who face tougher sledding heading into the 2016-17 slate.
Yes, some things haven’t changed: Everybody will play everybody at least twice, and each team will still play its four division rivals four times (two home and two away) to account for 16 intra-divisional games.
In essence, how tough a team’s season schedule depends on the strength of both its division and its conference. In short, a middling team in a tough division might well have a harder time getting wins than a below-middling team in a much weaker division (we’re looking at you, Atlantic).
Not surprisingly, the following five teams — the ones we see as having perhaps the toughest overall schedules — are probably not going to be anywhere close to making the NBA Playoffs, in part because of their brutal respective schedules. So let’s check them out / laugh at them!
Next: 5. Philadelphia 76ers.