NBA sets schedule for season restart
WASHINGTON, June 27, (AP): Zion Williamson is about to get another chance at opening night.
Injury kept him out of New Orleans’ appearance in the first game of this NBA season when the Pelicans started the year at Toronto, but now the big-name rookie will be in position to be on center stage at Disney when play resumes - against the team that was the first to find itself in the middle of the NBA’s coronavirus situation.
New Orleans will be in the first game of the resumed NBA season on July 30, taking on Utah at the Disney World complex near Orlando, Florida in the opener of a doubleheader. And just as the initial first night of this season-like-none-other did, the second game of nationally televised twinbill will pit the Los Angeles Lakers against the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Jazz were a logical storyline for the first game back, after Utah’s All-Star center Rudy Gobert was the first player in the league to test positive for the coronavirus - a development that forced the league to suspend the season on March 11. More than four and a half months will have passed between game nights in the NBA, but the league officially completed talks Friday with the National Basketball Players Association on the terms for restarting the season and therefore could release the 88-game slate of what are being called seeding games.
Finally, play will resume in a season that started with political strife between the NBA and China in October, the deaths of David Stern and Kobe Bryant in January, a pandemic breaking out in March and racial issues surrounding police brutality and other forms of inequality dividing the country once again during much of the league’s shutdown.
“There’s no question this season and frankly this year has been one which none of us will soon forget,” NBPA executive director Michele Roberts said. “Obviously, the virus came at us hard without any prior warning and then we were faced with the prospect of losing the season.”
But with a plan for strict medical protocols agreed upon, the league and its players believe it is safe to resume.
Players will start arriving at the Disney complex on July 7, will be tested daily once they get there, and could be away from their families for more than three months.
Families aren’t expected to be permitted on-site at Disney until the start of the second round of the playoffs, set to begin in late August or early September.
Meanwhile, the Detroit Pistons signed center Justin Patton, hoping the 2017 firstround pick can stay healthy to help the franchise’s turnaround.
Patton had surgery for a broken foot in 2018 for the second straight year.
The 6-foot-11 player was selected No. 16 overall three years ago by the Chicago Bulls, who traded him on draft night to Minnesota as part of the Jimmy Butler trade.