The NBA is not known for reacting quickly to criticism, so the league’s recent response to Steve Kerr raised plenty of eyebrows. The Golden State Warriors coach had been warning that the modern NBA schedule is grinding players down, especially with stars like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Stephen Curry dealing with early-season soft-tissue injuries.
His comments gained momentum, and when The Athletic’s John Hollinger added concerns about travel patterns created by the NBA Cup, the conversation jumped from sports talk shows to league headquarters.
Kerr’s point of view comes from what he sees every day. Games feel faster than ever, something backed up by league tracking data dating back to 2013. Practices are rare, travel is constant, and teams often play every other night with barely enough time to recover.
The Warriors recently went more than a week without a single full practice due to back-to-back road swings. Shortly after, a series of groin, calf, and hamstring injuries hit players around the league.
You always worry when Steph goes down that it’s something that’s going to keep him out for a while… The fact that we’re taking it by the week and it doesn’t appear to be anything too serious is a great sign.
According to Kerr, none of this is a coincidence.
A debate the NBA didn’t expect
The moment Hollinger suggested that the NBA Cup might have created awkward scheduling pockets, the conversation expanded. He was careful to note that the league did not add games, but he pointed out that some teams faced strange travel patterns and heavier early-season workloads. He also observed a visible jump in soft-tissue injuries during the season’s opening months.
That was when the NBA stepped in. Spokesperson Mike Bass labeled Hollinger’s analysis “inaccurate and misleading,” citing numbers showing that the first 42 days of this season featured 308 games, essentially identical to last year. Bass also pushed back on the injury narrative, saying that star-related absences are at a six-year low and that many current absences stem from late-season injuries from last year.
He’s going to get reevaluated on Thursday… He’s not doing any on-court work… Just getting rehab. Definitely not good
Still, outside data adds nuance. Studies like the one published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2023 link dense travel schedules with increased soft-tissue strain in professional basketball. Reports from independent trackers such as Man Games Lost show early spikes in calf-related absences. ESPN’s Baxter Holmes has also documented how NBA travel disrupts sleep cycles and slows recovery.
Kerr has a simple solution: shorten the season. He has advocated for fewer than 82 games for years, believing it would cut down on wear and tear and improve the quality of play. The problem is financial. Reducing gameswould reduce revenue, and the league and its partners are not eager to lose that income.
For now, the debate sits in a gray area. The NBA’s raw numbers support its stance that nothing has fundamentally changed, while Kerr and Hollinger argue that the reality players feel is very different. What is clear is that the NBA’s margin for error keeps shrinking as the game gets faster, travel intensifies, and fans continue to see stars miss time. The league may not be ready to shorten the season, but the pressure to rethink the schedule is growing louder every week.
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