Details of NBA's Unique Plan for Return to Play Revealed
The NBA is (almost) officially back.
Thanks to the reporting of The Athletic's Shams Charania and ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, details of the league's return-to-play plan have been revealed ahead of schedule.
The season will reportedly pick back up on July 31, and 22 teams will be invited. Those include the current playoff teams as well as six additional non-playoff teams that will compete for the final seed in each conference. Those teams are the Portland Trail Blazers, New Orleans Pelicans, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs, Phoenix Suns and Washington Wizards.
Each team will play eight regular-season games to determine playoff seeding. At that point, the No. 8 and No. 9 seed in each conference will enter a play-in tournament if the No. 9 seed is within four games of the No. 8. If the No. 8 seed wins the first game of the tournament, they would automatically qualify for the spot. However, if the No. 9 seed wins Game 1, they would have to win a second game against the same team to qualify.
Charania listed additional protocols in his report, noting that players will be unable to shower in the arenas, bench players will sit in spread-out rows (with inactive players in the stands), and no guests — meaning family and friends — will be allowed to attend until the playoffs begin.
The league's Board of Governors is expected to approve this format Thursday afternoon.
The biggest takeaway here for LA Clippers fans is the eight regular-season contests. As it stands, LA is the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference — 5.5 games behind the Los Angeles Lakers and 1.5 games ahead of the Denver Nuggets.
Maintaining that spot will be key for the Clippers if they hope to avoid a difficult first-round matchup with the likes of the Houston Rockets or Oklahoma City Thunder.
Ideally, the Clippers would face the Dallas Mavericks or Utah Jazz in the opening round of the postseason. LA looked strong against Dallas all season, and Utah looks a little less menacing now that the team's second-best scorer, Bojan Bogdanovic, will miss the remainder of the year.
Things will look and feel a lot different in Orlando, but the fact of the matter is the Clippers will still get the chance to compete for the franchise's first-ever title this year. And with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George running the show, it certainly seems possible.
