For fans, NBA schedule difficulties can sometimes sound like an excuse. NBA players are paid millions of dollars, the thinking goes, so why can’t they be ready to play and win two nights in a row? Even if they travel in between, they should be fine on their fancy private jets, right?
Cheri Mah, a physician scientist at the UC San Francisco Human Performance Center and someone who regularly consults with NBA teams on sleep-related issues, disagrees. In conjunction with ESPN, she’s created a formula, the Mah score, which takes into account game time, schedule congestion, travel required, recovery time, and game location for each NBA contest and then gives each game a 1-10 score.