SAN FRANCISCO—It was a wonderful idea well received when the NBA decided to lop about 10 days off the pre-season to put into a more spread out regular season that would afford more teams better rest for key players and lessen what is a tremendous physical grind.
But with every action comes an equal and opposite reaction, the science has proven, and there might be a need for a bit more study before this becomes a regular fall phenomenon.
As Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan said in the locker room Monday night in San Antonio with his left leg encased in ice from the thigh to below his knee after a particularly gruelling early-season game, the toll of asking players to go from zero to 100 with much less preparation than they’d normally have was evident.