Short offseason and compacted preseason made it hard for NBA teams to prepare for regular seasonNBAE/Getty Images
The "shenanigans around the first few days of the NBA season have been both delightfully random, completely screwy and so out-of-this-world wonderful that I hope it keeps up for the entire season," according to Doug Smith of the TORONTO STAR. There is "no doubt this season is going to be like no other," with "odd scheduling, weird travelling, a lot of teams spending a lot of time still figuring things out." But the "more chaotic it gets the better," because it "keeps everyone on their toes." No one really had "enough time to prepare for the season with a short off-season for the majority of the teams, too long a layoff from games for eight of them and a compacted pre-season because real games had to be played on Christmas come hell or high water." Smith: "What I really hope for is that there is never a time when things even out or get back to normal and the good teams are the good teams and the others aren’t. ... That would be crazily entertaining and just what we all need" (TORONTO STAR, 12/29).
