The Cleveland Cavaliers know who they are going to play next season. They don’t know the specifics, but they know generally what the schedule will look like. Every team in the league plays a schedule built according to the same rubric.
They will play all 15 teams in the Western Conference twice (once at home and once on the road), every team in their division four times (that’s the Bulls, Pacers, Bucks and Pistons) and every other Eastern Conference team either three or four times.
There is certainly still plenty to be sorted out, however. When exactly will the season begin? In what order will the Cavs face those teams? Do they get to play an extra against the rebuilding Orlando Magic or the contending Boston Celtics?
As the Cavs and their fans think about the upcoming city, an important question comes to mind: when will the 2022-23 NBA Schedule be released?
The NBA has yet to release the 2023-23 NBA Schedule. When can the Cavs and their fans expect that schedule to be announced?
The NBA has not made any announcements about when to expect the schedule, so let’s do a little research on past years to predict when the Cleveland Cavaliers’ schedule will be released.
Looking at the last two years will probably not help much. Last year the NBA schedule was released on August 20th, but given that the previous season ended a month late the release date was probably a bit late as well. The year before the schedule release came after the completion of the NBA Bubble, so the timing was all shaken up and in fact didn’t happen until December.
Let’s go back a little further. Here is the date that each of the five previous NBA schedules were released:
- 2019-20 Schedule: August 12th
- 2018-19 Schedule: August 10th
- 2017-18 Schedule: August 14th
- 2016-17 Schedule: August 11th
- 2015-16 Schedule: August 12th
That gives us a fairly narrow window with which to expect the NBA schedule. If the schedule is released between August 10th and 14th, that means it is less than three weeks away at the most, and could be right at two weeks from now.
The NBA will often let the marquee games trickle out first. The Opening Week slate, Christmas Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day — these matchups will be the first to make their way to the public, and then from there the entire schedule will drop.
Putting together a schedule is a massive endeavor, with individual teams sending in arena availability and scheduling requests and then the league trying to fit it all together. Some teams will get the choicest cuts: the fewest back-to-backs, rest disadvantages and extended road trips. Others will get a more difficult path, with those wearying back-to-backs and frequent trips around the country.
The schedule release won’t do much to inform the Cavaliers about the unpredictable portions of the schedule, when the Cavs will play games against injured teams that are worse than they look now, or against teams that are mediocre now but make a midseason trade to take a leap forward.
Last season the Cavs had a paucity of national television games, and the ones they did get came later in the season off of flex scheduling. This time around, will the Cavs have more games on national television from the jump? It seems likely.
The other thing to watch for is when the Los Angeles Lakers come to town. The rumors about LeBron James returning to the Cavs will not let up, and if he refuses to sign an extension with the Lakers before the season it could be a madhouse of speculation and badgering to try and get LeBron to slip up, to reveal something about his intentions. Is The King coming home again?
There is plenty to be excited about with the NBA Schedule reveal, and the Cavs will get to unfold their entire season and see what is in store. Given the timing of the last five normal years, that reveal could come in two or three weeks. Schedule Release: Between August 10th and 14th