Upon the NBA releasing the league-wide schedules for the 2017-18 season, there have been many notable changes made to the format.

According to Sam Amick of USA TODAY Sports, one of these alterations was the decision to eliminate the use of four games played in five nights.

The choice to start the league about a couple of weeks earlier has provided more time to space out the schedule to prevent that packed type of game scheduling to occur. The NBA’s continued effort to move away from that has been another bigger step toward adhering to the players’ request to lessen a number of back-to-back games that occur over the length of the season.

This has been a prominent topic of conversation over the last couple of years that came to a head last year with several notable players from the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors taking nights off during often nationally televised games. This is something that the San Antonio Spurs have done for years under head coach Gregg Popovich.

In truth, it’s another way the league is hoping to prevent that situation from compounding even further by giving them one less of a reason to go that route. It will be interesting to see how this will impact the league with more time for players to rest their bodies in between games and throughout the season.