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DETROIT — The Cavs are facing the latter half of their first back-to-back of the season on Monday against the Pistons. It’s also their third game in four nights. A stretch that’s quickly becoming a microcosm of a growing problem around the NBA. The league’s 82-game grind is consistently taking its toll, maybe more now than ever. Injuries are mounting everywhere, with a startling spike in Achilles tears that has shifted the NBA landscape, particularly in the Eastern Conference. Tyrese Haliburton, Jayson Tatum and Damian Lillard all suffered the devastating injury last season and are expected to miss most, if not all, of the 2025-26 campaign. It’s led to an increasingly unavoidable question: Should the NBA shorten its season? Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson believes the answer is yes, and it would be beneficial for the players, the fans and the game itself. “I think part of an NBA coach’s job is to manage this hellacious schedule,” Atkinson said pregame on Monday. “And I’ll just echo what Steve Kerr always says, if we go to 70 games, 72 games, the league will be more spectacular, more phenomenal. ... I think about that all the time. “Guys would just be able to perform at a higher level. Donovan Mitchell, you’re getting his best three games in four nights. [Are] you getting the best version of him? I think the fans look at it like, oh yeah, easy to say, 34 minutes, 34 minutes, 34 minutes. What are we getting that last night?” More Cavs coverage Cavs will be without backup point guard Monday as they manage early-season workload ‘That’s why we gave him a nice contract’: Sam Merrill paying off Cavs’ investment early in season The end of ‘too nice’: Inside the Cavs’ new era of raw accountability and championship standards How to watch the Cavs: See how to watch the Cavs games with this handy game-by-game TV schedule. Atkinson’s words echo what’s becoming a league-wide truth. The NBA’s biggest problem isn’t a lack of talent or parity. It’s fatigue. Each season feels like a test of survival. Teams enter training camp optimistic and healthy, but even by December, rotations are being patched together. By spring, it’s not just who’s best; it’s who’s left. The Cavs are already feeling it. They’re down two starters in Darius Garland (toe surgery) and Max Strus (foot surgery), while Lonzo Ball will sit Monday for rest as the team continues to manage his long injury history. Absences for injury management are no longer a rarity; they have become a common theme. Across the league, players and coaches have quietly accepted that the current system forces compromise. The regular season is long. The travel is relentless. And each schedule is more unforgiving than the next. Every team has the same goal in this sense. Stay healthy enough to reach the postseason in one piece. That’s why “load management” — once a dirty phrase — has become a necessary evil. And the fans are paying the price. Night after night, people spend to see their favorite stars, only to find out hours before tip-off that they’re not playing. Television networks bank on marquee matchups that suddenly lose their draw. The league’s most marketable product — its star power — has become unreliable. A shortened season could change that. Coaches like Atkinson and Golden State’s Steve Kerr have long advocated for trimming the schedule, believing fewer games would lead to fresher legs, better games, and fewer catastrophic injuries. Players could rest less because they’d have more time to recover. Teams could prepare more intentionally. And fans would get what they came for — the best possible version of the sport. The league has evolved in every way except one: the schedule. The NBA could preserve the quality of play while keeping its athletes healthy enough to deliver in the moments that define the league — April through June. Every night in the NBA brings a new storyline. But lately, too many of those headlines are about who isn’t playing. If the league wants to protect its stars, its fans and its future, the answer is right in front of it.
