NBA Planning 25-Day Window to Resume Season

Just days after ESPN's Baxter Holmes reported that multiple NBA teams have voiced concerns about returning to game play without a warm-up period, the league has reportedly considered a 25-day return-to-play plan that it's hoping to deploy when the country's health situation improves, according to ESPN's Brian Windhorst.

"What they're looking at is a 25-day return to basketball window."

–@WindhorstESPN details the NBA's back-to-basketball plan pic.twitter.com/7MrQycg11C
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 12, 2020

“They’re spending a lot of time getting a back to basketball plan ready. They hope they get to use it. And talking to executives and trainers around the league, what they’re looking at is a 25-day return to basketball window, hopefully at some point they can enact it. An 11-day series of individual workouts, where there’d be social distancing for a period of time, and then hopefully if the clearance comes that they can play 5-on-5 basketball, a 14-day training camp.”

While having this plan ready for whenever health officials decide it's OK to play games, NBA commissioner Adam Silver told Ernie Johnson that he doesn't expect games to be played before the end of April.

With the covid-19 pandemic still quite present throughout much of United States and Canada, it seems unlikely that the league would start ramping up to play before May 1. If that's the case, the playoffs would not be able to start until late May at the earliest, almost a month after its original scheduled start date of April 18.

A regular, two-month playoffs, starting at the end of May would likely go late July or August, allowing the league to crown an NBA champion before the start of the NFL season.