Update: Thursday, 1:06 p.m.
NBA owners on Thursday approved a plan to re-start their season in late July, after more than four months of no games held due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The league’s Board of Governors have agreed to allow a 22-team season restart, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com. A source reports to him it was a 29-1 vote in approval of the move.
The NBA Players Association still must ratify the deal, per Wojnarowski.
All games would be held in controlled locations in Orlando, Florida to protect players and staff from COVID-19. Fans would not be allowed into the arenas.
The league has also announced its draft lottery on August 25 and its draft on October 15.
Original story: Tuesday
The Milwaukee Bucks, the current leaders in NBA regular season record, will get their chance to play for an NBA title through an altered tournament, according to a report.
The NBA will vote Thursday on a 22-team format with eight regular season games, leading to a 16-team NBA playoffs, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The league schedule would run between July 31 and October 12, with all games played in Orlando.
Each team would play an eight-game schedule to help seed the teams for the playoffs.
New Orleans, Portland, Phoenix, Sacramento and San Antonio (all Western Conference teams within realistic shot of the 8th seed) and Washington (the Eastern Conference team within range of the 8th seed) would participate with the current top eight seeds in each conference, per Wojnarowski.
Additionally, if a team is within four games of the eight seed after the eight-game stretch, a sequence of play-in games would happen to decide the 8th seed, according to Wojnarowski.
The Bucks had the NBA’s best record and the Eastern Conference No. 1 seed at the point that the league cut off play due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Bucks organization did not comment about the report.