NBA gives players more detailed schedule for Disney World restart
The NBA gave teams a more definitive timetable for the restart to the pandemic-interrupted season Friday, including required coronavirus testing that is set to begin this month and mandatory individual workouts in early July before training camps.
The league is still working on completing the health and safety protocols that will essentially become the rulebook for the restart at the Disney campus near Orlando, Florida – and told teams that talks with the National Basketball Players Association on those issues are continuing.
But with those matters apparently far enough along to determine a schedule of sorts, the league gave teams the go-ahead to immediately start allowing two assistant coaches to deal with voluntary player workouts. The rule had been one coach with one player since teams were given the green light to re-open facilities for the voluntary workouts last month.
NBA head coaches can be one of those two coaches involved in the voluntary sessions starting 23 June, though social distancing and other rules the league applied in response to the pandemic would still apply.
That 23 June date is significant in another way as well. That would be the first day players on the 22 teams that will be going to the Disney campus would be required to undergo coronavirus testing conducted by those teams.
The league also said it is still working on plans for the eight teams – Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Golden State, Minnesota and New York – that will not be part of the restart at Disney. Those teams can keep their facilities open for now for voluntary workouts until told otherwise.
The rest of the league’s timetable, as of now and with the caveat that it is still considered tentative until the health protocols are done and agreements with Disney are signed, includes:
1 July through 7, 8 or 9 July — Required individual workouts for players on the 22 participating teams, with the end date coinciding with which day that team would arrive at the Disney campus
7, 8 and 9 July — Arrivals at the Disney campus in Lake Buena Vista, Florida
9-29 July — Team training camps at Disney, which would follow initial health and safety screenings upon arrival
21 or 22 July — Start date for three intersquad scrimmages for each team. The scrimmages will be scheduled by the NBA and will have NBA referees
30 July through 14 August — Seeding games at Disney. Games will resume. The NBA is still working on completing the schedule for those eight games per team, and the matchups will be based on regular-season games that remained when the league suspended play on 11 March
15-16 August — The two-game playin series to determine the No 8 seed in each conference, if necessary. The series would be necessary if the team in ninth place in either conference when the seeding games end is within four games of the No 8 team. A best-oftwo series would be played, with the ninth-place team needing to go 2-0 in those games to earn a playoff berth. Otherwise, the No 8 team would take that seed and move into the conference quarter-finals
17 August — Playoffs begin. This date would move up to 15 or 16 August if the play-in series are unnecessary. The playoffs are all scheduled as traditional best-of-seven series
30 August — A limited number of family members and guests of remaining teams will be permitted to arrive at Disney for the first time. They would stay on the Disney property. They will not be permitted until this point in the schedule
31 August through 13 September — Conference semi-finals
15-28 September — Conference finals
30 September through 13 October — NBA finals. The league originally planned a 12 October end date, though that has now been adjusted