Play- in tournament for final seeds to return
Board approves format involving teams with 7th through 10th- best records in each conference
The National Basketball Association's upcoming season will feature changes, including to its length, start time and format.
The league's 72- game schedule, a decrease from the traditional 82 games, will begin December 22 following preseason games from December 11- 19. An All- Star break is set for March 5- 10. The NBA playoffs are set to start May 22 and go through July 22 at latest.
To finalize the seventh and eighth playoff spots for each conference, the NBA will host a play- in tournament May 18- 21 that includes teams with the seventh- highest through 10th- highest winning percentages in each conference.
The NBA plans to release the first half of its regular- season schedule ( games from December 22- March 4) around the start of training camp. The league said it will release the second half of the schedule ( games between March 11– May 16), at some point during the first half of the season.
Amid that uncertainty, the NBA established that each team will play each team in their own conference three times and each team out of its conference twice. The intraconference games will feature either two home games and one road game or one home game and two road games – something the league office said it has “randomly assigned.” The interconference games will feature one home game and one road game. All five teams in each division will play all five teams from another intraconference division twice at home, and all five teams from the remaining intraconference division twice on the road.
As for the play- in tournament, the winner of a game between the teams with the seventh- highest and eighth- highest winning percentages will land the No. 7 seed in the conference. The loser of that game will host the winner of a game between the teams featuring the ninth- highest and 10th- highest winning percentage. The
winner of that game will earn the eighth and final playoff spot in the conference.
The NBA presented this format during the season restart, the Portland Trail Blazers beating out the Memphis Grizzlies for the final postseason seed in the West. Only the Western Conference used the tournament in the bubble since the final two seeds had less than a five- game lead following the eight- game restart.
The NBA has not established definitively which teams will host games with fans this season. The Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers as well as the Minnesota Timberwolves have said they do not plan to open games with fans to start the season. The Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder have tentative hopes to host games with limited fans, which would include rapid testing for COVID19 as well as enforcing social distancing, mask- wearing and sanitary rules.
Raptors still unsure if they can play 2020/ 21 season in Toronto
The conference call took place in his native Hawaii, far from where Toronto Raptors general manager Bobby Webster normally works.
Even when NBA training camps open in less than two weeks, Webster may still have to work away from where the Raptors normally train and play.
“We want to stay in Toronto. But as we all know, time is of the essence,” Webster said Tuesday. “We're also working on a path to play elsewhere.”
The Raptors currently face more complicated logistics than the NBA's 29 other teams because of Canada's coronavirus regulations. Although the Raptors are allowed to travel to the United States, they would be subject to a 14- day quarantine anytime they returned home. Any visiting team would face the same restrictions.
That would lead to a disrupted itinerary considering the NBA plans to have a reduced 72- game regular season between December and May, followed by the playoffs scheduled through late July.
“We don't have a drop- dead date” with determining where the Raptors would practice and play games for the 2020/ 21 season, Webster maintained. But with training camps beginning on Dec. 1 and the season opener taking place on Dec. 22, Webster conceded “it's getting close.”
The Raptors have made proposals to the Canadian government about lifting those restrictions. Webster added he's “not aware of any communications with the U. S. government,” either with the administrations of President Donald Trump or president- elect Joe Biden. The Raptors are also hopeful that the Canadian government will take into account how the NBA successfully hosted a season restart on an isolated campus outside Orlando, Florida, which included daily COVID- 19 testing.
“There an infinite number of boxes to check into each location,” Webster said. “We're doing that in a couple of different ones. Obviously we hope to have resolution in Toronto or the alternate location as soon as possible.”
The Raptors have not finalized any locations, which could include Buffalo, New York; Tampa, Florida; Kansas City, Missouri; and Newark, New Jersey. The Raptors don't plan to play in Louisville, Kentucky, or Nashville, Tennessee, as some reports suggested, amid concerns that would complicate the NBA's hope to minimize travel.
Still, the Raptors are weighing many different variables in determining a backup plan on where to live, train and play.
Major League Baseball's Toronto Blue Jays played their home games this past season in Buffalo, the home of their Triple- A affiliate. Major League Soccer's Toronto FC played its home matches in East Hartford, Connecticut. And the Raptors trained in Fort Myers, Florida, before traveling to the NBA campus bubble for the season restart.
“Our plan is whatever we do decide on, we want to go down there and get settled. We don't want to have a trip back to Toronto,” Webster said. “But there's going to be a natural break in the season. So there would be an opportunity to transition back.” ( USA Today/ TNS)