2011-2012 Schedule Analysis

By:
Published: December 6, 2011

Yeah, I know we all have more important things on our mind.  We here at Hornets247 fully expect to be writing about the Chris Paul trade and what Dealer Dell managed to get for a top 10 NBA talent within a few days.

However!

We still have a season to play, and the schedule was released today.  My first take?  It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.  There was a lot of doom and gloom about the expected crowding to fit in “too many games”.  The reality, though, is that the league scrapped eight weeks which normally housed about 23-26 games.  They then added a week to the end of the season, and dumped 16 games.  So really, the league is only squeezing about 4-5 more games in than normal. 

One thing to note – with fewer games – and therefore less games from Marquee teams to pass around, the ownerless, lobby-less Hornets have clearly been deemed low-priority.  The Hornets only get 1 game each against Boston and the Heat, a trio of games against the Lakers (rather than four like usual) and – and this is telling – against Dallas, a team in their own division, they only got 3 games.  You are supposed to play teams in your own division four times.  Now, that sucks if you watch games to see other teams talent.  It doesn’t suck so much if you want to see more Hornets wins, because it just means the Hornets have a slightly higher percentage of games against last years bottom feeders.  Probably not enough to make a difference, but I’m going for the the glass being half-full.

Anyway, here’s the analysis, month by month.  It’s a roller coaster.

January/December

  • Number of Games: 21
  • Playoff teams from last year: 14
  • Back to Backs: 4
  • Back to Backs to Backs: 0
  • Diffculty rating: Holy Crap!

The three games in December aren’t so bad with two games against Phoenix, but as soon as the New Year arrives and the Hornets reach the crest of that first drop of the rollercoaster, things go crazy.  18 games left through the month with a whopping 13 of them against teams that were in the Playoffs last year.  The only redeeming feature is that most of those playoffs teams are the lower seeds from last year:  Memphis, Philadelphia, Portland.  Marquee Games?  There are two mid-month games against Dallas, and the Hornets close out the month playing their lone game against the Heat in Miami.  Oh, and if Buckets is still with Sacramento, he comes visiting New Years Day.

February

  • Number of Games: 14
  • Playoff teams from last year: 6
  • Back to Backs: 3
  • Back to Backs to Backs: 1
  • Diffculty rating: Easy 

Here, the rollercoaster hits bottom and starts up the opposite rise and things slow down considerably.  Only six games are against playoff teams from last year, including a pair of showdowns against Chicago, and one each against San Antonio and Oklahoma City.  The first part of the month is fairly light, with two different two-day rests between games.  The end of the month finishes with a six-game road-trip, however, and in the middle of that roadtrip is the Hornets only back-to-back-to-back of the year against, in order, OKC, Indiana and then Cleveland.  They then get five days off and finish their set of away games against Chicago.  That’s not so bad for what could have been a nightmare stretch of schedule.  This month also contains one of the only Nationally televised games of the year – CP3 vs. the New York Knicks.  Anyone willing to give odds at this point that the game will be dropped?  I didn’t think so.

March

  • Number of Games: 17
  • Playoff teams from last year: 8
  • Back to Backs: 5
  • Back to Backs to Backs: 0
  • Diffculty rating: Hard

 And the Hornets drop into another fast-moving stretch of the season, with two four-game road trips and only one stretch to catch their breath – a three game stretch between with no game from the 18th to the 20th.  Marquee games include matchups against Dallas, the Lakers twice, San Antonio, and a pair of games against CP3 and the Golden State Warriors.  Yeah, you heard it here first.

April

  • Number of Games: 14
  • Playoff teams from last year: 6
  • Back to Backs: 3
  • Back to Backs to Backs: 0
  • Diffculty rating: Easy

 And here is a nice stretch of games, evenly spaced out, and with a fairly light list of former playoff teams.  Yes, the Hornets face San Antonio and the Lakers once each, but there isn’t much else for the team to worry about.  If the Hornets have somehow found a way to build a team post-CP3 capable of reaching the playoffs this year – this month could easily be the way for them to pull it off.

Here’s hoping.

3 Comments

  1. Pingback: 2011-2012 Schedule Analysis – Hornets247.com (blog) | DirectUSA TV

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.