The NBA has been out of commission since March 11th, when Utah Jazz center Rudy Golbert tested positive for Covid-19, and after the NBA suspended their season for the time being is when other leagues took action and did the same which included, the NHL, MLB, the NCAA March Madness tournament, and many soccer leagues around the world to just name a few.
However, fantastic news for sports fans as the NBA and the NBPA have come to an agreement for when the season will restart. The NBA season will resume on July 31st in Orlando Florida being played at Disney World in Orlando. This plan includes a 8 game regular season and then jumping into a normal playoff picture, with 16 teams making the playoffs. However, if the 9 seed is within 4 games of the 8 seed, a game or two will be played for the last playoff spot. It will be a difficult challenge for the 9 seed as they will need to prevail in 2 games, where the 8 seed only needs to win 1 game.
The teams headed to Orlando will include the 16 teams currently holding a playoff spot in the West and East, and will be joined by teams less than 6 games back of the 8 seed. This will include Washington in the East, and Portland, New Orleans, Sacramento, San Antonio, and Phoenix in the West. Although, teams that were outside the playoff picture have a chance of sneaking in, not all teams were invited to Orlando and it marks the end of the Season for the following teams: Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Golden State, Minnesota, and New York. Those teams are still looking into possibilities to keep their players active by doing some sort of small league together.
Therefore the NBA will start back up on July 31st at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida and will be played to the latest of October 12th. This moves around some key dates for the league. The NBA Draft Lottery will now be on August 25th, October 15th will be the NBA Draft with a very quick turnover for teams who participated in the playoffs, and then finally the NBA will begin their 2020-2021 season on December 1st.
