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Thirteen years ago, Brad Miller was an NBA rookie. He was in game shape from having played in Europe. His legs were young, his outlook fresh.

The NBA lockout had just ended. It was early February, and training camps had opened. A breakneck -- and backbreaking -- 50-game schedule loomed. Here is how Miller remembers his first practice with the Charlotte Hornets:

"The first day back, Derrick Coleman, Chucky Brown and I were trying to do a down-and-back drill," said Miller, now a member of the Timberwolves who is coming back from knee surgery. "It took them like 18 seconds. I was doing 'em in eight. I'd be down at the other end waiting for 'em. Some guys didn't come into camp in shape."

It wasn't that long ago, so the memories are still strong. Shawn Kemp coming to camp at or near 300 pounds. Veterans all around the league trying to shed months of fat in a couple of weeks. Charles Barkley looking at the schedule, which included the occasional back-to-back-to-back, and exclaiming: "I can't play three days in a row. I can't have sex three days in a row."

The 1998-99 season was shortened after a lockout that didn't get things going until Feb. 5.

Fast-forward to 2011. After another lockout, and a shortened training camp, a hectic, compressed, 66-game NBA schedule begins Sunday and ends April 26.

So what can you expect?

The athletes, playing endless back-to-backs -- and occasionally three games in three nights -- can expect soreness to rise to epidemic levels.

"It was like going from zero to 60 in one day rather than in a week, a few weeks or a month," said Chris Palmer, the Wolves' trainer back then. "There was a lot of wear and tear."

Chris Carr began that year with the Wolves before going to New Jersey as part of the Stephon Marbury trade.

"When I was with the Nets, here is how practices went," said Carr, who now runs 43Hoops Basketball Academy in Hopkins. "We'd show up at the facility and go sit in the hot tub. We'd shoot free throws, then sit in the hot tub and wait for our turn with the massage therapist. We'd watch film, then go sit in the hot tub."

Sloppy play

John Schuhmann of NBA.com found it was the lowest-scoring season since the league went to a 24-second shot clock in 1954.

The pace of the game slowed, and offenses were at the lowest level in 20 years. Teams averaged 91.6 points, down four from the previous year.

Field-goal percentage dropped, both inside and beyond the three-point arc. Turnovers were up, offensive rebounding down. But what else would you expect after a long layoff and a short training camp?

"We didn't have enough practice time," said Wolves assistant coach Terry Porter, who as a 35-year-old guard played 27.3 minutes a night for Miami without missing a game. "So much of it was just fast and furious. This time, health is going to have to be a priority, and coaches will have to go deep into their bench to keep players as rested as possible under the circumstances, because this is going to be a challenge."

And what about injury?

"Now we have another window, another opportunity to say, 'OK, we have [another] lockout,' " Hewett said. "There will be a short preseason, there has been very limited access to teams' strength coaches and trainers.

"I would hypothesize that, overall, you'll see a higher rate of muscular-skeletal injures, joint strains and muscle strains."

At the very least, you'll see a lot of folks sitting in hot tubs.

But don't complain to Wolves coach Rick Adelman.

"These guys are young, that's what they keep telling me," Adelman said of his team. "So they should have young legs. I guess I can be the old-school, ex-NBA player that can tell these guys we used to play three games in three nights all the time, and we had to get up and fly commercial at 6 in the morning."

So who has the advantage? The veteran team that has been together, running the same scheme? Or the young team with young legs, even though it has a lot to learn?

Fred Hoiberg, former Wolves guard and current Iowa State coach, was a reserve for a veteran Pacers team in 1998-99, a team led by Reggie Miller, Chris Mullin and Mark Jackson and coached by Larry Bird.

"It was a great, veteran team that had been together for a long time," Hoiberg said. "They made sure the players worked out together [during the lockout]. I do remember there were some teams that didn't keep themselves ready."

That Indiana team won a division title and reached the Eastern Conference finals. The league champion was San Antonio, which had eight players with nine or more years of NBA experience.

"Initially this favors the veteran team not making changes," Porter said. "We have young players with a new coach learning a new system, and we won't have a lot of practices to cover the mistakes they'll be making. But, toward the end of the season, those veterans may fall off. It will be interesting. But what will be tested is teams' depth."