Improvement Number 1: Back to Backs

A back to back is when a team plays a game on two consecutive days. For example, the Warriors played a game on April 9th and April 10th in 2021. In the second game, James Wiseman tore his meniscus in an injury which required the teenager to undergo season ending surgery. The Warriors had to play without a center (typically the tallest player) for the rest of the season.

The graphic below is for the actual NBA schedule from 2018-2019 which is the last full regular season played because of Covid.

For the schedule I created, the graphic below would not exist, each bar would just display zero.

The back to back totals refer to the number of games in which a game was played the day before, the first game of a back to back set is not counted.

Improvement Number 2: Total Distance Traveled Decreases by over 570,000 Miles

Equivalent to 23 laps around Earth or 2.1 laps around the planet Jupiter

Away teams play home teams in nearby cities, creating efficient routes for teams to follow. Furthermore, The Linear Programming model chooses the most efficient set of road trips to complete the season.

Note how every single team travels significantly less in my schedule compared to the actual 2018-2019 season. These calculations were generated automatically using a python script which senses the beginnings and ends of road trips. The script then calculates the distance required to leave home, fly to each city and subsequently fly home again. I made calculations on both the actual season and my own. Please see the Python Automation section and the Appendix for more details including output and the code itself.