Union OKs plan for play

Nightly testing among protocols to resume NBA

The return of the NBA season moved one important step closer on Friday. Work, however, remains to be done.

The National Basketball Players Association’s player representatives approved the league’s plan to restart the season a day after the NBA Board of Governors voted in favor of the 22-team, single-site scenario.

There remains a great deal to be negotiated, particularly the league’s targeted start date of Dec.1 for next season. All changes to the league’s calendar are subject to collective bargaining, but the union did approve the schedule to begin play July 31, pending the results of talks on other issues.

“The Board of Player Representatives of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) has approved further negotiations with the NBA on a 22

team return to play scenario to restart the 2019-20 NBA season,” the players association said in a statement. “Various details remain to be negotiated, and the acceptance of the scenario would still require that all parties reach agreement on all issues relevant to resuming play.”

The 28 player representatives agreed with the plan for the league and players association to conduct nightly tests for COVID-19 and for players and staff members to remain within the sprawling 220-acre ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex property.

The league will limit each team to 35 players, coaches and staff members. In addition to the eight “seeding games” to be played before the start of the playoffs, teams will have two or three preseason games each.

In the plan, a limited number of family members may join players after the first round of the playoffs, with the league waiting to add people to the campus until after teams have left to limit those within the environment to no more than 1,600 at any one time.

In the NBA’s return-toplay plan, the 16 teams in playoff position when the season was halted March 11 along with six teams within six games of the playoffs will be housed, play and practice on the Disney site outside of Orlando. The eighth- and ninth-place teams after the eight “seeding games” will have playin games if the ninth-place teams are within four games of the eighth seed. The eighth seed would have to win one game, the ninth seed two games.

The playoffs will have the customary four rounds of best-of-seven series.