NBA to unveil plan for 22-team return
The NBA told the National Basketball Players Association that it will present a 22-team plan for restarting the season to the league’s board of governors on Thursday, The Associated Press reported.
The teams that will be going to the ESPN Wide World Of Sports complex on the Disney campus near Orlando, Florida, would play eight games to determine playoff seeding starting around July 31 before the postseason begins, according to Wednesday’s report.
The plan, once approved, would have 13 Western Conference teams and nine Eastern Conference teams going to Disney, and the cutoff being that teams must be within six games of a playoff spot at this point. Playoffs would start in August, and the NBA Finals will likely stretch into October.
The Bucks, Lakers, Raptors and Celtics already have clinched playoff spots — and, if only eight games are left, that would mean the Heat, Pacers, 76ers, Clippers, Nuggets, Jazz, Thunder and Rockets would theoretically have clinched spots as well.
The Mavericks would be virtually assured of clinching a West spot, holding a seven-game lead over the eighth-place Grizzlies. That would mean the Grizzlies, Pelicans, Kings, Spurs and Suns all would be in the running for the No. 8 seed out West. In the East, the Wizards are six games behind the No. 7 Nets and 51⁄2 games behind the No. 8 Magic — so within range of triggering a play-in series.
“I’m all in from the state’s perspective,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday in central Florida. “I don’t think you could find a better place than Orlando to do this. I think it’s very exciting.”
DeSantis met by phone with NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum on Tuesday. The governor also said the state helped with the plans to make a golf match last month featuring Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning — one that raised $20 million for coronavirus relief — happen. And Major League Soccer announced Wednesday a plan to restart its season in Orlando.
“Orlando really could be the epicenter of the comeback of professional sports,” DeSantis said.
There are still some elements of the restart plan that could be changed, and other matters are still being negotiated — such as how much of a percentage of their salaries players will lose because some regular-season games will be canceled. If 15% of the regular season isn’t played, which would be the current estimate based on the proposal, players would have to give up roughly $610 million in salary for this season. The NBA suspended its season March 11, becoming the first of the U.S. major pro leagues to do so after it became known Jazz All-Star center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. The list of NBA players who were known to test positive eventually grew to 10 — not all were identified — and Commissioner Adam Silver said the actual total was higher.