NBA to resume, Magic excited
22 teams to finish season at Disney
Nikola Vucevic and the Orlando Magic were closing in on their second consecutive playoff berth when the NBA season was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, as they begin to look ahead to a restart next month, the Magic appear to have a somewhat bumpier path to get there.
And they’re OK with that.
The NBA is about to return, and the Magic are ready to get back to work.
“I can say that for all my teammates, we are all very excited,” Vucevic, the team’s longest-tenured player, said Thursday afternoon during a videoconference with season ticket-holders. “Once we heard the news, we were all texting in a group chat about it and talked all about it.
“By keeping in touch, we all wanted to come back and finish the season. So, we’re all very excited about it. Now that we know how much time that we have before it starts, we’re ready to put in the work.”
While the NBA has not officially announced the venue, the season is expected to resume in Orlando at ESPN Wide World of Sports on Disney World property. The league and Disney have been engaged in talks for weeks.
Regular-season games are set to tip off July 31 without fans and with extensive safety measures isolating players from the Central Florida community.
The league’s reopening plan, which was approved Thursday by the Board of Governors, calls for a 22-team format that will include the 16 that were in a playoff position when the season was suspended on March 11, as well as the teams within six games of the postseason cutline.
Under the plan, each team will play eight regular-season games to determine the playoff seeding. The Magic had 17 games remain
ing, but seven of those were against teams that will not be participating: the Bulls (2), Hornets (2), Knicks, Pistons and Cavaliers.
Orlando would resume the season in the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference, trailing the Brooklyn Nets by just half a game.
“We appreciate the leadership of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver in this unprecedented time and we look forward to getting back to basketball,” Magic CEO Alex Martins said in a statement released by the team.
The format also means the Washington Wizards would slot in behind them in the ninth spot and could potentially bump the Magic — or the Nets, for that matter — from the playoffs.
But with just eight games to be played, passing the Magic or the Nets won’t be easy. Orlando holds a 5.5-game lead over Washington.
Still, a shift in the standings is a possibility, and one the NBA hopes will create further interest. Under the proposal, if the Wizards finish within four games of the eighth-place team, a play-in would follow. The ninthplace team would have to win twice to secure the eight seed.
For their part, the Magic have been engaged in voluntary individual workouts since May 14. During a recent interview, coach Steve Clifford applauded his players for their efforts to prepare for a possible return.
The Magic, who were 8-4 during the 12-game stretch before the shutdown, had the third-easiest schedule remaining and were set to play 10 of their final 17 games at home.
While the regular-season schedule is set to be reshaped, Clifford considers the Magic to be part of the postseason.
“We were starting to play very well,” he said Tuesday during a telephone interview with the Sentinel. “The regular season is about one thing and that’s qualifying for the playoffs and our team had basically done that again, in my opinion. And that part, I think we should all feel good about. “
Magic president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman echoed Clifford’s sentiments.
“We are a playoff team. We have earned the right to be a playoff team and we look forward to participating in the playoffs in whatever format the league deems most equitable,” Weltman said in a statement. “We are ready to go. Our guys have worked very hard during this hiatus. The majority of our guys have remained in Orlando. They’ve stayed attached to their programs, to the coaching staff and attached to each other. We’re optimistic that when the time comes to return to work that they’ve put a good foundation in place to build upon.”
In the West, the Blazers, Pelicans, Kings, Spurs and Suns are the teams outside the playoff bubble expected to be invited. Each is within six games of the eighthplace Grizzlies.
The playoff format will remain a best-of-7 series through all four rounds, the league announced.
As had been expected, the league’s Board of Governors on Thursday approved the NBA’s proposal for reopening the season by a 29-1 vote. Shams Charania of Stadium and The Athletic reported the Trail Blazers were the dissenting vote.
The plan still needs to be approved by the National Basketball Players Association.
The union has scheduled a virtual meeting for Friday to discuss the plan approved by ownership, according to Marc Stein of the New York Times.
The proposal puts teams in training camps on June 30, with players reporting June 21 and coronavirus testing beginning June 22, before traveling to Orlando on July 7, according to Charania.
Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press reported that exhibition games ahead of the July 31 regular season are part of the proposal.