The NBA board of governors voted to approve the 22-league league format to tentatively resume the 2019-20 season on July 31 in Orlando, Florida, they confirmed in a statement.
Under commissioner Adam Silver’s plan, 16 Western Conference teams and nine Eastern Conference teams will play eight regular-season games, a possible play-in tournament to determine the eighth seed of the playoffs, according to the statement. The Finals should end no later than October 12.
Sources told Wojnarowski that the plan was approved by a 29-1 vote.
The NBA set the draft for October 15, and that the draw will be held on August 25.
Commissioner Adam Silver and the Financial Advisory Committee had shared the general details of the plan with the teams to play at The Disney World Resort.
The top 16 teams from the Eastern and Western Conferences will join the teams currently up to six games from eighth place in the two conferences: New Orleans, Portland, San Antonio, Sacramento, Phoenix and Washington, the sources said.
The tournament of play-in will include teams Nos. 8 and 9, if the ninth seed ends the regular season calendar four or fewer games apart from the eighth.
In that case, the eighth-place occupant enters a double-elimination tournament, and seed number 9 enters a single-elimination tournament.
The teams will begin training at the team sites in July and will advance to the full training grounds in Orlando later that month.
The NBA plans to conduct uniform, daily tests for the coronavirus in the Disney campus environment, sources told ESPN.
If a player tests positive for the virus, the league’s intention would be to remove that player from the team to quarantine and treat him individually, and to continue testing other team members while they play, sources said.
Life in the NBA bubble will be governed by a set of safety protocols. While players and coaches will be able to play golf or eat at outdoor restaurants, they will also need to maintain social distance, sources told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.
Similarly, Disney Resort employees must maintain similar protocols. For example, staff will not be allowed to enter players’ rooms, while hallways will be carefully managed to avoid overcrowding, sources told Shelburne.
Among the eight teams left out of the Orlando format, several are disappointed and concerned about how a 9-month window between NBA games impacts their teams competitively and financially, sources report to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
For those teams that were left out of the playoffs, including Atlanta, Cleveland, Charlotte and Detroit, there has already been a dialogue with the league urging mandatory summer training camps and fall regional leagues that could close the gap between seasons, the sources told Wojnarowski.
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