Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise, is one smart dude.  He’s also a pain in the butt to the other NBA owners, but I think that’s more because he is willing to rock the boat and ask hard questions than because of his almost instant success reviving down-and-out franchise.

Mr. Cuban asked a question that I can’t believe has not been asked before: What is a team’s won-loss record in the second game when that game is played the day immediately following another game?  In other words what is a teams record in the second game of a back-to-back?  He recruited Elias Sports Bureau to help him come up with the answer, which is pretty interesting (W-L records of each NBA team over the last few years are at the bottom of the post).  He also is looking at the teams’ records in the last game they play when they play four games in five days, but he doesn’t have the W-L in the post.

My question is whether or not this is new information.  From the post I gather that it is, so my next question is how can all the people managing NBA teams not already know this?  I’d think it would behoove them to know this kind of stuff so that they can take steps to try and alleviate the problem.  From trying to negotiate better stadium deals to prevent the need for this kind of scheduling to figuring out ways to help the players deal with the situation when it arises you would think they would want this kind of data to back them up when they make requests/demands for the sake of the team (when negotiating with stadium owners) and the owners (when trying to justify expenditures on behalf of players who already make gobs of money).

I guess that’s what makes Mr. Cuban so smart; he asks the questions that no one else even thinks of.