NBA 2020 Season Restart. All the Things You Need to Know Today.
NBA Set the Restart Date
As initially approved by the NBA's Board of Governors the season will restart by July 31, 2020. It will have a ripple effect on the other important NBA schedules. If the restart date will push through with its planned relaunch on July 31, 2020, the NBA Lottery Draft will be scheduled on Oct. 15 and the 2020-21 NBA regular season would likely begin on Dec. 1, 2020.
From 30 to 22 teams.
In the same approved format, the NBA Board of Governors includes 22 teams with the best records to participate in the restarted season. This means 8 teams already ended their 2019-2020 season journey as of official announcement. Each of the 22 returning teams would play eight seeding games. These seeding games will be based on remaining regular-season matchups. If the said regular-season schedule involves a team from the 8 already eliminated teams, they will just skip to the next schedule where the opposing team is still in contention.
At the conclusion of the eighth seeding games, the seven teams in each conference with the best-combined records across regular-season games and seeding games would already clinch the playoff spots. The final eighth spots for each conference will still be contested by the eighth and ninth-ranked teams.
If the margin of wins between the eighth and ninth-ranked teams is more than 4 games then the eight-seeded team automatically earns the final playoff spot of the conference. If the difference is 4 games or less, the eighth and ninth-ranked teams will battle it out for the final conference spot. The eight seeded teams have the twice to beat advantage, meaning, the ninth-seeded team, must beat the eight-seeded twice while the eighth-seeded needs only to beat the ninth team once in order to advance to the playoffs' conference.
Out of the 22 teams with the best NBA records who keep their hopes alive for the rest of the season, 6 will be removed during the eight seeding games. These additional 6 removed teams will join the previously eliminated 8 teams to be the seeded teams during the NBA Draft Lottery.
The 22 Teams.
The 22 teams who advance to restart the season are the Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers, Denver Nuggets, Utah Jazz, Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks, Memphis Grizzlies, Portland Trail Blazers, New Orleans Pelicans, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns from the Western Conference. And the Milwaukee Bucks, Toronto Raptors, Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, Indiana Pacers, Philadelphia 76ers, Brooklyn Nets, Orlando Magic and Washington Wizards from the Eastern Conference.
The proposed tournament will be held in one venue and as agreed will be at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida. The whole tournament will be in one venue which means all homecourt advantages are already removed. The teams are still on proposals on how to make up for the advantage the most seeded teams have earned during the regular season.
From 22 Teams to 16 Playoff Teams and the Road to Championship.
After the eight seeding games, the remaining 16 teams will continue the playoff games with the usual format of previous years. This means a race to 4 wins or possible 7 elimination games on the first round, also 7 elimination games on the semifinals, 7 elimination games on the Conference Finals, and finally 7 elimination games for the NBA Championship trophy.