Last Thursday, the NBA's board of Governors has approved the league's plan to resume the 2019-2020 season. But what exactly is this plan?
As you can guess, they can't just press "Play" and resume the season exactly where it was paused, so they had to come up with some kind of plan to make the end of this season fair, competitive and attractive to viewers and players alike.
Everything will happen at Disney World Resorts, in Orlando, Florida, because it's one of the only states to have announced that major sports events could start again.
Here are the details of this plan:
1. Key Dates
- June 30: Training camp
- July 7: All teams fly to Orlando
- July 31: Start of the season
- August 25: Draft lottery
- October 12: Game 7 of the Finals
- October 15: NBA draft
- December 1st: Start of the 2020-21 season
2. Specific Rules
- Sorry NBA fans living in the area, no one will be attending the games, for obvious health reasons.
- Only 22 teams will compete:
- The top 8 franchises in the East
- The top 8 franchises in the West
- 6 extra teams, the ones closest to clinching a playoff spot: New Orleans, Portland, Phoenix, Sacramento and San Antonio in the West and Washington in the East.
- 8 "regular season" games will be played before the playoffs start. These will follow each team's calendar where it was stopped (removing the games against any of the 8 teams that didn't make the cut).
- Creation of a 2-game play-in tournament to get the last spot for the playoffs:
- If the difference between seeds 8 and 9 is more than 4 games, no play-in tournament and nº8 qualifies.
- If the difference is less than 4 games, then seeds 8 and 9 play as follows:
- If 8 wins the first game, the tournament ends and 8 is qualified
- If 9 wins the first game, then it goes to game 2. If 9 wins game 2, they qualify, and if 8 wins game 2, they qualify. Basically, seed nº9 has to win both games in order to qualify, while seed nº8 only has to win one.
3. Issues left to resolve
- Home court advantage. How do you give home-court advantage to teams who fought hard during the entire season in order to get it and who now have to play on foreign grounds without their fans? Here are some options, but nothing has been officially decided yet:
- The team starts every quarter will the possession.
- One player (chosen in advance) is given 7 fouls instead of 6.
- Coaches get one more challenge.
- Teams can bring their own floor, to play with their logo.
- Teams can chose the hotel they're staying in
29 of the 30 franchise owners approved the new plan, Portland being the odd one out for undisclosed reasons.
What do you think of all this? Do you think the season should have just ended as it was and started again as usual in October? Are you excited about it coming back earlier than that? Let's discuss this in the comments! And let me know if something is not clear, I'll try to explain it better.
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