NUGGETS EXCITED AS NBA APPROVES ITS RETURN
Nuggets excited for resumption of season in Orlando
The NBA’s Board of Governors approved a 22-team format for restarting the league season tentatively for July 31 at the Disney campus near Orlando, Florida, the league announced Thursday.
The Nuggets are thankful that the wait is over.
“We’re excited that there’s a real plan for resumption of play,” Nuggets president of basketball operations Tim Connelly told The Denver Post by phone.
“We’re fully supportive of (Commissioner) Adam (Silver) and the league office. I think our guys are chomping at the bit to get back out there.”
The format calls for each team playing eight “seeding games”, as the NBA has called them, to determine playoff slots in addition to a potential play-in tournament for the No. 8 seed in both conferences. A traditional playoff format would follow. The NBA didn’t specify how the league would determine each team’s remaining games, except to say games would be “selected from its remaining regular-season matchups.”
The Nuggets were the No. 3 seed at 43-22 when the league paused on March 11, and as momentum built ahead of Thursday’s vote, Connelly had voiced cautious optimism about what his team might be able to do in Orlando.
“We want to be certainly respectful of the process, the competition,” he said. “We haven’t achieved tons, but we also have to be our own biggest fans. We have
to believe that we’re going down there to be down there for the long haul and hopefully come back with a championship.” Their best hope of that revolves around Nikola Jokic, who posted historic numbers in his playoff debut last season. According to Connelly, Jokic hasn’t taken the time off for granted. “Nikola looks unbelievable,” Connelly said. “He’s in fantastic shape. Not just Nikola, a lot of our guys have taken this whole process very seriously. And I give them and our performance and strength-and-conditioning staff a ton of credit for keeping these guys locked in, but I’ve never seen him in better shape.” The vote marks “the first formal step among many required to resume the season,” the league said in a statement. It’s also finalizing a formal plan to re-start with the National Basketball Players Association. Part of the discussion with the NBPA centers on the implementation of a rigorous testing program to prevent the spread of COVID-19. That includes a “regular testing protocol and stringent safety practices.” Silver hasn’t answered what might happen if, for example, if three players on the same team test positive. He’s scheduled to hold a virtual press conference next week with the media. The Associated Press, according to a source given anonymity because the details of the ongoing talks have not been publicly released, said the National Basketball Players Association and the NBA are continuing to work on a “lengthy” medical protocols document. The details of that document will be shared with teams once those discussions are completed, said the source. The NBA said the Finals would end no later than Oct. 12. It also announced that the draft lottery would be tentatively scheduled for August 25 and the draft itself would be on Oct. 15. Finally, the league announced that next season would “likely” begin on Dec. 1, meaning an offseason of just over a month and a half for Finals participants. Milwaukee, the Los Angeles Lakers, Boston and reigning NBA champion Toronto had already clinched playoff berths. Now, with only eight games remaining for each team, it means that eight other clubs — Miami, Indiana, Philadelphia, the Los Angeles Clippers, Denver, Utah, Oklahoma City and Houston — have postseason spots secured, and Dallas virtually has one as well. That leaves nine teams vying for three remaining playoff berths. In the East, Brooklyn, Orlando and Washington are in the race for two spots. In the West, Memphis, Portland, New Orleans, Sacramento, San Antonio and Phoenix will jostle for one spot. If the gap between eighth place and ninth place in either conference is four games or less when the shortened regular season ends, those teams will go head-tohead for the No. 8 seed. The team in ninth place would have to go 2-0 in a two-game series to win the berth; otherwise, the No. 8 seed would advance to the postseason.