The NBA has announced details on the revamped schedule for the 2020/21 season, including a confirmation that there will be a play-in tournament between the No. 7-10 seeds in both conferences for the first time (Twitter link).
The league has noted that it will release the dates for its individual game schedule in two portions. The NBA did release its plan for the schedule in a matrix grid, per Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic (Twitter link), though it will not announce the specific dates of its matchups until “around the start of training camp.” The second half of 2020/21 is set to be announced during the season’s first half.
Still, we now know several of the nuances for the NBA’s 75th season. For the 72 regular season games in this truncated season, teams will play three games against all teams within their own conference, and two against teams in the other conference.
Here are the set dates for the NBA season as they stand presently:
- December 11-19, 2020: Preseason
- December 22, 2020 – March 4, 2021: The first half of the NBA’s regular season
- March 5-10, 2021: The NBA All-Star break
- March 11 – May 16, 2021: The second half of the regular season
- May 18-21, 2021: Play-In Tournament
- May 22 – July 22, 2021: NBA Playoffs
The league went on to note that the second half of the season, set to commence after the All-Star break concludes on March 11, 2021, will not only include the scheduled games, but also “any games postponed [due to COVID-19 issues] during the first half that can reasonably be added to the second half schedule.”
As for the play-in tournament, it’ll pit the seventh- and eighth-best teams in each conference against one another, with the winner earning the No. 7 seed. The loser of that game will face the winner of a matchup between the ninth- and 10th-best teams. The winner of that contest will become the No. 8 seed.
The Play-in Tourney, will probably serve the West better, since so many teams are within a few games for the 8th spot.
It’s a different story in the East.
How about having a statistically-based trigger (within a certain % of the 8th or 9th spot, etc) for the play-in tournament.
So, bottom teams will have some more incentive to compete than tank.
The 7th seed has to play in aswell?? Wtf. What is the whole point of the regular season ?
The 7th and 8th seeds only have to win once, while the 9th and 10 seeds have to win twice to advance to the playoffs.
Does the outcome of the play-in games affect draft order?
My question also. I THINK that whoever DOES make the Playoffs, regardless of regular-season record, is out of the Lottery, and the 15-30 Draft Order is among that group arranged by regular-season record. Then the 14 who DON’T make the playoffs ARE in the Lottery, and their odds / position are again determined by regular season record.
So, conceivably, you could have the 7th-place regular-season finisher in the West (currently Denver at 0.571) get knocked out and be in the Lottery, while in the East, the 10th-place finisher (currently Chicago at 0.471) gets into the Playoffs and is therefore out of the Lottery.
Teams in 7th and 8th are going to start throwing the games in order to get into the lottery as that would be more worth their time than wasting their time in the playoffs.
It’s no different than now. Just allows you to throw 1 or 2 games at the end instead of a few earlier on. The Lottery odds are so poor at the back end that it’s really only going to put teams a few places earlier in the Draft. IOW, the different between a #7 Seed drafting around #17 or #18 and a Late-Lottery Team drafting around #13 or #14 is not worth missing the Playoffs for.
The play in tournament is the DUMBEST AND STUPIDEST THING IN HISTORY. 9th and 10th place in each conference will be SUB 500. Those teams will lose to the #1 and #2 seeds, so why does it matter? My god the NBA is the dumbest league in the world. How about try to stop the tampering of players under contract and letting the players run the league. Maybe try PARITY?
Let the PLAYERS run the League? It’s already obvious what a disaster that would be. You’d have all the stars playing together on the teams in NYC and LA, maybe a few in Boston, Miami, and SF, and all the rest would forever be scrub teams. The ability for top players to conspire and create super teams is already out of hand, and ultimately something will have to be done about the meaningless salary cap to allow all teams a fair shot at reaching the top.
I DO agree about the play-in being terrible. If a team works for 72 games to get in, and then a couple of bad games at the end can knock them out, what was the point?
I like the Aussie Rules format (for the top 8 teams).
Week 1, 1 plays 4, 2 plays 3, 5 plays 8, and 6 plays 7
The winners of 1-4 and 2-3 get a bye for the next week, the losers have to play the next week. The winners of 5-8 and 6-7 get to play the next week, the losers are eliminated.
If all goes in the expected order, week 2, teams 1 & 2 get a rest, 3 plays 6, 4 plays 5, and 7 & 8 are out.
After that, it’s just a normal 4-team, single-elimination tournament.