At the time of writing, the NBA’s schedule for the 2022-23 season is about to be released…well, the rest of it, anyway. As opposed to having the entire schedule release at once, Shams Charania and other prominent NBA reporters revealed when notable matchups are slated to take place, from the rematch of the most recent Finals to…Dejounte Murray vs. Paolo Banchero (if you know, you know).
Lakers writer Donny McHenry even revealed a staggering schedule stat:
We now know the exact date and opponent of 11 of the 82 regular season games for the Lakers
What a foolish day https://t.co/alLixD4af0
— Donny McHenry (@donny_mchenry) August 16, 2022
So, what happened to all the fanfare regarding the NBA schedule release?
I don’t have a concrete answer, but I can tell you this. This year, the league’s reporters did not handle it well at all.
In my view, leaking parts of the schedule was a terrible move by NBA media, because it took away the suspense of the marquee matchups to watch this year. Not to mention, the videos released by each team have become a fan-favorite trend and something I look forward to during the offseason.
Though all of that is somewhat intact with this year’s NBA calendar drop, it simply does not feel the same. I would have preferred that the journalists keep the information to themselves and release it after the teams announce it. In this case, we already know around 25% of the dates, leaving us all in anticipation of…random matchups in the middle of February. Woohoo, right?
What’s Next?
If this is a precedent set by NBA reporters, what is stopping other leagues from following suit? Could Adam Schefter leak the dates for the Rams vs. Bengals? Next year, is Ken Rosenthal going to pull the cat out of the bag and give us every date for Dodgers vs. Giants or Padres vs. Nationals? The aforementioned scenarios seem unlikely now, but soon, they could become the norm.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the NBA reporters have their reasons for the leaks. The offseason has been relatively dry for a while as the world waits for major trades to go through. However, it was not the best idea to go ahead and reveal the NBA calendar to the world. We want to find out about the games, but I’m sure we’d all rather a traditional schedule release instead of having leaks and replacing it with a negative precedent.
