The NBA’s current projection has games resuming in late July or early August, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
The league is working on multi-phase protocols involving medical and safety concerns, Charania adds. Teams are expected to hold training camps in their home cities in July, followed by camps and scrimmages in Orlando.
It’s the latest bit of encouraging news as the league tries to salvage its season following a hiatus that is now up to 11 weeks. Decisions still have to be made on how many teams will be involved and how the playoffs will be handled.
More information is likely to be forthcoming in a remote meeting Friday involving commissioner Adam Silver and the NBA’s Board of Governors. However, we learned this morning that a final plan isn’t expected at that session.
A limited number of family members would be permitted to join players in the bubble environment in Orlando under a plan being negotiated by the league and the National Basketball Players Association, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne.
Issues include when family members can arrive at the Walt Disney Resort, which will probably happen once the first group of teams is eliminated and fewer people are being housed in the bubble, sources tell the authors. Family members will be required to undergo the same safety and testing protocols as players and other team personnel.
Talks are continuing on a playoff format, but teams are becoming “skeptical” that the entire league will be part of a resumption, the story adds. One playoffs-plus idea would involve 20 to 24 teams with more from the West than from the East, sources tell Wojnarowski and Shelburne. Play-in possibilities are also being considered involving the Pelicans, Trail Blazers, Spurs and Kings, who are all within striking distance of the eighth seed in the West.
If they go with 20 teams and make the range within 5 games of the eighth the four teams listed would go. If they try for 24 and make the range within ten games, they’d actually have to go to 25 since Phoenix is six games out while four teams in the East are within ten games. The issue with having play-in games might not go over well with the NBPA since you’ll have players go through all the testing and subject themselves to risk to just get paid for one game if they’re one and done.
One scenario I think could work could be a round robin series in each conference of the teams within striking distance. The teams that finish with the best records in those series would play the eight-seeds in best of 3 series.
To stagger the amount of teams in the bubble in my example, all the teams currently in the top seven seeds in each conference would stay off site until the eighth seeds are decided.
Any thoughts on when the 20-21 season will start?
Probably December.
Why is that ‘encouraging”? What would be encouraging would be a new season starting on time.
This season is one to put in the rearview mirror.
Yeah that would be sooo encouraging!!! Ay ay ay Curtisrowe you really are a delightful dude to have around when you need cheering up, right?
According to ESPN
East owners are not voting East plays West in the first round
The MLS is starting up at Disney in late June and doing a European style tournament with all 26 teams participating in a group stage, followed by knockout rounds. That tournament will take over a month to finish. That takes you to late July/early August. I’m sure that they will disinfect & clean all the hotels after the MLS leaves. It wouldn’t be smart for the NBA to come in while most of the MLS teams are still there. Starting in mid-August might be the best thing for the NBA to do
Not sure that anyone has signed on the dotted line. Anyway Disneyworld resuming normal operations may be a bigger problem. Stating about July 15 is the time to go, with shorter lines, presumably more spacing in the lines, and much to do outside. Well I’m guessing.
The MLS has an agreement in place with Disney to play there. The only thing they are waiting on is approval from the players. Originally, the plan was to play a 10 week tournament, but the players pushed back & a 5-6 week tournament was proposed. They want to start on like June 28. Disney can hold both the MLS & NBA, but it probably would be smarter to not hold them at the same time.
In August?? That is still two months away! It will soon be 3 months since the season was suspended, and still we have nothing more than “exploratory talks” and “several ideas being floated” etc.! We keep hearing this for months now, with no end in sight… I was very much rooting for the season to resume until a few weeks ago but this is getting ridiculous. In August… why don’t we push it back until October then and simply just call it the 2020/21 season?