22-team return with eight regular-season games
NBA to approve plan for 22-team return with eight regular-season games
Nearly three months after the NBA suspended operations indefinitely due to the Coronavirus, the league now has a plan that would resume the season before jumping into the NBA Playoffs. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA plans to propose a 22-team format that could see the season resume on July 31 at Walt Disney World in Orlando.
The play-in format requires a double-elimination format for the 8th seed, a single-elimination for the 9th seed, per sources.
The 22-team format would welcome back the 16 teams currently eligible for the playoffs, along with six additional teams to compete for playoff seedings. The New Orleans Pelicans, Portland Trail Blazers, Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs will all get a chance to keep their season alive out of the Western Conference. There are still some elements of the restart plan that could be changed, and other matters are being negotiated — such as how much of a percentage of their contracts that players will lose because some regular season games will be canceled.