“It’s a Very Big Issue”: Inside the NBA’s Sleeping Problem
Late nights, early mornings, and the impossibility of getting quality sleep as an NBA player
AT AGE THIRTY-SIX, having captured an elusive fourth championship title and dealing with the shortest offseason in NBA history, it was only natural to expect LeBron James to ease his way into the 2020–2021 season.
We’ve seen this story before: Brian Windhorst infamously reported that James came into training camp in 2014, fresh off of back-to-back titles, in perhaps the worst condition he had been in for a decade.
Likewise, after grueling playoff runs in 2015–2019, James lowered his defensive workload each season in his second tenure in Cleveland, to the point where many metrics painted him as one of the worst defenders in the NBA.
It was surprising that LeBron has so clearly entered this current season with so much energy and passion — while his teammate, Anthony Davis, has faltered behind while struggling through an extended shooting slump. James’ play, as a scorer, playmaker, and defender (while shooting a career-best mark from three), has him at the forefront of MVP discussions.
So how is it that James, who recently played three-straight games with 40+ minutes for the first time since 2017, maintaining his conditioning at an unprecedented level for his age?
The obvious answer is that James spends over $1.5 million annually on training, massaging, stretching, and recovering his body. In a league where every player seeks a competitive advantage from new techniques and technologies, LeBron is at the forefront of all methods of recovery.
But, perhaps, James’ recent comments after a game against the Detroit Pistons, the Lakers’ 5th on a grueling 7 game road trip, can give greater insight into what allows him to maintain his energy at age thirty-six.
“I don’t get tired. I don’t feel tired. I get my sleep; I get my rest,” said LeBron. “I have a lot of energy. I don’t get tired and my mindset never gets to the point where it’s like this is a long road trip or I’m exhausted or I’m tired.”
And there it is. The secret to LeBron’s success and the secret formula to his otherworldly conditioning at age 36, is something that everybody needs: sleep.
BACK-TO-BACK games on the road, 3 A.M. flights, and late-night games: the NBA has all of the elements that are known to be conducive to poor sleep (in quantity and quality).
An ESPN feature article on this exact topic has a litany of quotes that show the scope of this issue.
“We have a large population of vampires as it is — add in the travel and it’s more so. We all want better solutions to this,” said one GM.
An anonymous GM called it a “very big issue,” and another said, “It is a real problem for the entire league.”
One league official, in the featured quote of the ESPN feature, said, “It’s the dirty little secret that everybody knows about.”
At the heart of the issue is the NBA schedule, a grueling permutation of 82 games, 30 cities, and 30 teams — and that is before considering the toll of consistently sleeping in hotel rooms and airplanes, having to practice on “off days,” and generally never having more than a few days to recuperate until the All-Star Break.
It’s the NBA schedule that is the reason that, though almost every player in the NBA realizes they are getting suboptimal sleep, they soldier on.
The stats back up these ideas too.
According to ESPN, in the last “normal” NBA season (2018–2019), teams, on average, played games every 2.07 days, played 13.3 back-to-back sets, and traveled an average of 250 miles a day during their 6 month season.
There are high correlations between sleep loss and injury, as well as reduced statistical production in games and worse recovery rates. Remember this: sleep deprivation is a national (and perhaps a global) issue, which makes the average NBA player’s sleep schedule that much more disturbing.
The adrenaline rush from games, the chemical imbalance caused by the intensity of playing a professional sport, and the constant traveling all ruin a player’s sleep cycle: someone who exerts themselves physically as strongly as an NBA player would be expected to get 8–9 hours of quality sleep — yet most NBA players sleep no more than 5 to 6 hours a night.
In doing so, NBA players lose REM sleep, the most important stage of sleep for cognitive function and memory. No wonder teams struggle to win games at the end of road trips.
Some of the anecdotes coming out of the league are equally incriminating.
Andre Iguodala, who reportedly struggled with sleep deprivation until landing in Golden State in 2013–2014, would often take long, multi-hour naps on game days, stay up late after games (due to the adrenaline rush), and then would wake up early for practice the next day.
Another story, from the 2012–2013 season, according to ESPN, was the Magic’s Tim Royer finding that one of his players’ testosterone levels, in his 20s, had “dropped to that of a 50-year-old man.”
Testosterone, needless to say, is crucial for athletes. It fortifies muscles, builds endurance, and adds strength. It is perhaps the defining biological difference between men and women in sports, and it is crucial to the top male athletes in the world to maintain their peak performance.
With that being said, the NBA is a league that isn’t stagnant — and with sleep being such a deprived need, it makes sense that more players are going the proverbial “extra mile” to get better sleep.
“I THINK IN a couple years,” said Tobias Harris, “[sleep deprivation] will be an issue that’s talked about, like the NFL with concussions.”
Harris has become the league’s leading advocate for sleep and wellness. While being bounced around from team-to-team, he has consistently improved his game, peaking in this current season with the Philadelphia 76ers.
His sleeping routine is as precise as Steph Curry’s warm-ups and LeBron James’ eidetic memory.
If he does not have a game, he finishes his tasks at 6:00 p.m. to roll into bed at 8:30, all to gain 9+ hours of sleep. On game days, as soon as he heads into the locker room after the final buzzer, Harris puts on a breathing belt and a heart-rate monitor around his finger. He then practices a breathing routine, trying to bring his body back to equilibrium.
Breathing has been cited in many articles and quotes about sleep as being crucial to sleeping success, particularly after games, so it’s no surprise that Harris practices deep breathing.
By doing so, he increases his melatonin, the hormone related to sleep regulation, while suppressing his spike in cortisol, a hormone that keeps him awake, triggered by the adrenaline rush of an NBA game.
The final step in Harris’ routine is using an electroencephalogram machine, which monitors his brain waves and analyzes his focus. For forty-five minutes per day, Harris uses the machine, which in turn will indicate whether his brain is in a good state for concentration and focus — a process known as “neurofeedback.”
Other players have tried their own devices.
In Cleveland, amidst the Cavs’ first two Finals runs, point guard Matthew Dellavedova began wearing a “Whoop” wristband during games. As ESPN’s Tom Haberstroh put it at the time, “think Fitbit, but for the million-dollar athlete.”
It monitors heart rate, body temperature, and body movement, which provide insights for sleep and recovery. Dellavedova wasn’t alone in wearing it either.
LeBron James’ longtime trainer, Mike Mancias, served as an advisor when Whoop began as a startup in 2012, and through that connection, James began wearing the device during practices. DeAndre Jordan, then of the L.A. Clippers, had been pictured wearing the device before games, and even during a game against the New York Knicks.
Though the league’s ban against wearable technology bans the Whoop from being used in games, its greatest impact comes off the court.
By tracking data as the aforementioned data such as heart rate, body temperature, and body movement, as well as ambient temperature, recovery scores, and heart rate variability, Whoop sifts through troves of data to help its users. It offers tips to users on how to improve sleep, and it helps athletes improve their “sleep hygiene,” which refers to the behaviors that can degrade sleep, such as alcohol consumption, screen usage, and caffeine consumption.
A study of the usage of Whoop among NCAA teams found that the small wearable band improved sleep time, sleep quality, and increased behaviors conducive to quality sleep. Most importantly, perhaps, it reduced injuries by a significant margin (60% fewer injuries for those using Whoop).
Likewise, veteran forward Andre Iguodala, who, as mentioned earlier, struggled with sleep deprivation, began using a Jawbone. Similar to the Whoop, Jawbones are wearable devices that monitor sleep length, sleep quality, and give tips on what behavior can improve users’ sleep.
In an unprecedented move, in 2016, Iguodala let Jawbone analyze and release his data, and the results were staggering.
Iguodala, a streaky shooter and elite defender, saw his offensive performance skyrocket on days where he got 8+ hours of sleep. He also saw a 45% decrease in fouls committed and a 37% decrease in turnovers, which correlates with the idea that REM sleep helps players’ focus better on the court. Overall, it was clear that Iguodala experienced greater performance with greater sleep.
While the three-point percentage increase seems more coincidental than anything else, the free throw percentage increase further paints more sleep as helping to improve peak performance.
Of note: this data was taken in 2016 when Iguodala was coming off of a Finals MVP and still relatively healthy. In later years, nagging injuries and age would inflict Iguodala’s shooting and defense, which could significantly affect the data taken in this type of study, which looked a the correlation or causation of two distinct things: sleep and performance.
Other players, however, take simpler steps to get better sleep.
James, for instance, occasionally uses the Whoop device but also sets the temperature in his hotel rooms at 68–70 degrees (many experts cite 68 degrees as an optimal temperature for sleeping). He also shuts off all electronic devices, which permeate blue light, disrupting the release of Melatonin, almost an hour before he goes to bed. As he drifts to sleep, his phone plays the sound of rain falling on leaves, a binaural beat that helps put his mind at rest.
Former Blazers teammates C.J. McCollum and Kent Bazemore both try to avoid electronics and try to get into bed as early as possible — Bazemore, in particular, uses blackout curtains to block light from entering his room.
Clippers All-Star forward Paul George and Lakers All-NBA forward Anthony Davis are among many who avoid sleeping on flights, because of the adverse effects these naps and light sleep can have on gaining uninterrupted, REM sleep. In fact, the Lakers team, which is veteran-laden and among the oldest in the NBA, stay an extra night on road trips to avoid the late-night flights and early-morning arrivals that are destructive to deep sleep.
Lastly, Steph Curry, at the advice of former Warriors’ director of physical performance and sports medicine Lachlan Penfold, visits a Bay Area studio offering “desensitizing flotation baths,” which supposedly help sleep quality and recovery. The sleep tank has water with a high concentration of Epsom salt, which helps muscle and tissue recovery, but it also blocks out all noises when closed, helping players have “the best sleep they’ve had in ages,” according to Penfold.
INTERESTINGLY, BECAUSE OF COVID-19, this NBA season has near-perfect conditions to see what benefits added sleep can have.
Fewer road trips, reduced travel, and a 72 game schedule are all things, that, in theory, should help NBA players rest more. In addition, the “market bubble” that the league has imposed means players have to be in their hotel rooms for longer than ever.
That said, these changes haven’t been perfect.
For instance, though the league reduced its schedule, they did so to alter their schedule back to a normal timeline — a timeline that would avoid overlapping their NBA Finals with the NFL. Furthermore, daily COVID-19 testing forces players to wake up early in the morning after games, disrupting their sleep. Teams still play roughly every two days, and that alone means they will continue to have players who struggle with sleep.
Perhaps Tobias Harris is right in his analogy comparing sleeplessness in the NBA to concussions in the NFL: unless there are significant, drastic measures implemented, sleep deprivation will simply continue to be a reality for most players in the league.
With the league’s revenue down (due to an exponential decrease in ticket revenue), and no real indication of when arenas can be sold out with 20,000+ fans again, it’s probably unrealistic, from a financial standpoint, for the league to implement the schedule and travel reductions necessary for players to get quality sleep.
So despite the problem being identified, the reality of sleeplessness will continue. It doesn’t help that stories of Kobe Bryant waking up hours before dawn, or Jimmy Butler waking up at 3:30 A.M. to start his offseason workouts, permeate throughout the league as the gold standard of “hard work.”
The war to get more sleep has been waged, with the NBA claiming that players’ wellness and health is a “major focus.” Yet, at the end of the day, this is the entertainment business, and players will be handed an entertainment schedule, not a sports schedule.
Only time will tell if that disturbing reality will ever change.
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