On Wednesday, we learned that the NBA was zeroing in on Central Florida’s Walt Disney World Resort as the site of its campus wherein it hopes to host a truncated playoff tournament in lieu of a traditional 16-team contest.
At this time, it is unclear as to whether the league will attempt to play any of the regular season contests that have been missed as a result of the March 11 suspension of play, especially since most of the league’s teams have played between 63 and 65 games — the gross majority of their schedules.
Whatever the plan is, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Zach Lowe published a report in which they state that the league’s teams are expecting the commissioner to issue return to play guidelines around June 1.
The expectation is that teams will be given the green light to reconvene and schedule team workouts somewhere in mid-June.
NBA teams are expecting the league office will issue guidelines around June 1 that will allow franchises to start recalling players who’ve left their markets as a first step toward a formal ramp-up for the season’s resumption, sources told ESPN…
The league is discussing a step-by-step plan for a resumption of the season that includes an initial two-week recall of players into team marketplaces for a period of quarantine, one to two weeks of individual workouts at team facilities, and a two- to three-week formal training camp, sources told ESPN.
The report from Wojarowski and Lowe also mentions that the league is still considering multiple sites for its return to play, with Las Vegas being mentioned specifically. In some ways, it could make sense for the league to have one campus for each conference. Those details will have to wait.
Another thing the ESPN report mentioned was the continued possibility of a play-in tournament.
The NBA Players Union’s interest in having games before the playoffs begin is likely from a want to allow players to get back into game shape before the stakes are highest and to help mitigate the financial losses they’ll see from canceled games.
The NBA and NBPA are meeting to discuss the structure of a return, including how the league will navigate the possibility of regular-season games, play-in tournaments, playoff formats and whether the full 30 teams will be brought back to finish the season, sources said.
At this point, there’s obviously a lot of momentum pointing toward the NBA reconvening and eventually resuming its season. It now seems to be a matter of when and whether the coronavirus and its persistence in Florida will permit.