Clippers Home Schedule Leaked

Let's start by pointing out that this is really, really, really unofficial. The official schedule is going to be announced this afternoon, so we'll all know by then anyway. There was a tweet yesterday that the home schedule appeared briefly on the Clippers web page last night. That tweet had couple of dates, but not everything.

After seeing that Tweet, I wondered if someone somewhere had been quick enough to get the full schedule copied; sure enough, someone did. It was first posted on the RealGM boards, and has made it's way to the ClippersTopBuzz board at this point as well. As it happens, there were some omissions in the schedules posted on those boards (they only had 31 home games), but I was able to got back through the Google docs that were saved from the web site and find the missing games.

[Note by Steve Perrin, 12/06/11 3:04 PM PST ] There are rumblings that the league has indeed made updates today, so anything that you've seen on leaked schedules, including what follows here, is extremely subject to change.

The NBA could still be tweaking things, this might not have been the real schedule to begin with, your mileage may vary, side effects include insomnia and heartburn... but here's the home schedule that was briefly posted at Clippers.com:

12/30 vs Bulls

1/1 vs Blazers

1/4 vs Rockets

1/7 vs Bucks

1/11 vs Heat

1/14 vs Lakers

1/16 vs Nets

1/18 vs Mavs

1/20 vs T-Wolves

1/22 vs Raptors

1/26 vs Grizzlies

1/30 vs Thunder

2/2 vs Nuggets

2/15 vs Wizards

2/18 vs Spurs

2/22 vs Nuggets

2/28 vs T-Wolves

3/11 vs Warriors

3/12 vs Celtics

3/14 vs Hawks

3/15 vs Suns

3/17 vs Rockets

3/18 vs Pistons

3/24 vs Grizzlies

3/26 vs Hornets

3/28 vs Suns

3/30 vs Blazers

3/31 vs Jazz

4/4 vs Lakers

4/7 vs Kings

4/14 vs Warriors

4/16 vs Thunder

4/22 vs Hornets

In addition to these games, we also know of course that the team has two pre-season games with the Lakers, and opens the season on the road at Golden State on Christmas Day.

We can infer a few things from this information.

• It looks like the team has two pretty long road trips, 13 days in early February and 12 days in early March. Those aren't as long as the nightmare February last year (not even just the pre-ASB portion), but they are long. Of course, the Grammy's force a long February trip every year, so that one's no surprise. In general, February 3 through March 10 is going to be a brutal stretch - 37 days with four home games (and the ASB is in there as well).
• For Season Ticket Holders, it's pretty good news. From the Eastern Conference, the Bucks, Bulls, Celtics, Hawks, Heat, Nets, Pistons, Raptors and Wizards will all be in town. Heat, Celtics and Bulls are probably the three biggest draws from the East, so not bad. Of these nine teams, the Clippers will only play three of them on the road. From a schedule strength standpoint, you want the Bucks and Wizards on that list, not the Heat and Bulls.
• Given the East teams not coming to Staples, we know that the Clippers will play road games against the Bobcats, Cavs, Knicks, Magic, Pacers and 76ers. I'm calling that a huge break - lots of winnable games there, maybe all of them if Orlando has to deal Howard. (I'm saying winnable - not that the Clippers will win.)
• Finally, we know that four West teams appearing just once at Staples will only be on the schedule three times total, twice on the road. That list is Jazz, Kings, Mavs and Spurs. I guess it's nice to only play Dallas and San Antonio three times, but having two of them on the road is unfortunate. I'm very surprised to see the Kings as a team the Clippers play three times - I was sure that teams would play Division rivals four times each.

There will be more thorough schedule analysis here later today when the full, official schedule is released.