Posted June 4, 2020 at 8:04 p.m. – updated June 4, 2020 at 10:17 p.m.
The owners of the NBA franchises, meeting this Thursday, approved the plan of recovery of the commissionaire Adam Silver. The season will therefore resume at Disney World in Orlando, with 22 teams, on July 31.
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The NBA is back! The leaders of the Big League approved this Thursday during a videoconference meeting the plan for the resumption of the season, interrupted since mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic, proposed by the commissioner Adam Silver. Twenty-nine franchise owners voted in favor, and only one (the one in Portland) voted against. But since only 75% of favorable votes were needed to approve the plan, the resumption of the season will take place, in one location, Disney World in Orlando, and with 22 franchises. Player representatives will meet on Friday to approve this plan.
More teams from the West than from the East
As had revealed ESPN and The Athletic Wednesday, from July 31, we will find the four teams that have already won their tickets for the play-offs (Milwaukee, Toronto, Boston, the Lakers), as well as the twelve other Top 8 teams from each conference (Miami, Indiana, Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Orlando (which will therefore play at “home”) in the East; the Clippers, Denver, Utah, Oklahoma City, Houston, Dallas and Memphis in the West). These sixteen teams will be joined by the other six with a maximum of six wins behind the eighth, namely New Orleans, Portland, San Antonio, Sacramento and Phoenix in the West, and Washington in the East. Which means players from Minnesota, Golden State (the only team mathematically eliminated from the play-off race before the season’s suspension), Charlotte, Chicago, New York, Detroit, Atlanta and Cleveland will no longer play this season. .
The draft on October 15
Then, each of those 22 teams will play eight regular season games (there were 17 or 18 remaining for each franchise at the time of the season suspension), to determine the final standings before the play-offs, from first to seventh place in each conference. For eighth place, a jump-off will take place between eighth and ninth, if the ninth has four wins or less behind the eighth (otherwise, the eighth will be directly qualified for the play-offs). In this jump-off, which will take place in one or two games, the ninth will be eliminated if he loses a single game, and the eighth will be eliminated if he loses two. The play-offs (which will take place on the usual model) will then begin around August 20, and the Finals at the end of September, to end, at the latest, on October 12. The teams will be able to start training collectively on June 30, then travel to Orlando on July 7. The “draft lottery” (to determine the order of teams for choosing new players) will take place on August 25 and the draft on October 15. Three days later the “free agency” will start, and the 2020-21 season could start on December 1st.
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