National Basketball Association

The Clippers once considered forfeiting a game because of the NBA schedule

Published Nov. 15, 2016 2:53 p.m. ET

Brett Pollakoff

It's no secret that the NBA schedule isn't exactly conducive to a good night's sleep. Players often leave an arena after one game and immediately board a flight to get to another, arriving in a new city in early morning hours only to have to play a game the very same night.

Teams refer to certain games as "schedule losses," essentially knowing that players won't have enough in the tank to get the job done after a particularly rough stretch. Clippers head coach Doc Rivers (via ESPN) said he considered not even making the trip for a 2014 game because he knew his team would lose.

Today, Rivers is keenly aware of which games are "unwinnable" -- so much so that he's actually considered the once-unthinkable: forfeiting. Rivers, now the Clippers' coach, recalls that LA was scheduled in 2014 for back-to-back games, the second on the road, immediately following a seven-game road trip. "I contemplated keeping the team home, literally," Rivers says. "We knew we were walking into getting our ass kicked, and that's what happened.

"What is it they say? If you have less than five hours of sleep for three days in a row, your reactions are that of a legally drunk driver? We've seen that with our own eyes."

The league has worked to reduce the number of back-to-backs and stretches of four games in five nights in recent years specifically to address this concern, but there will always be certain games on the schedule where, because of recent extensive travel, one team is simply at a competitive disadvantage.