The NBA is back.
Or, at the very least, it will be on July 31.
In a move that had been expected for the past several days, on Thursday, the league’s franchises approved Commissioner Adam Silver’s 22-team return-to-play plan with a final vote of 29-1.
The Athletic’s Shams Charania was first to report that the league’s teams had approved the plan.
The plan being adopted means that eight teams are officially done for 2019-20, while the other 22 will convene at Walt Disney World in Orlando on July 31. The 22 teams will each play eight regular-season games before being seeded and cross-matched into a traditional NBA playoff bracket.
According to Charania, the Portland Trail Blazers were the only team to vote against the commissioner’s proposal.
Sources: Portland was the lone team that voted against the 22-team format. https://t.co/WxxADXEkNb
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 4, 2020
At this time, the expectation is that the league will run its playoffs from July 31 through the second week of October, with the 2020 NBA Draft occurring sometime thereafter.
The Thunder’s eight regular-season opponents will go a long way toward determining their playoff seed and where they are placed within the bracket.
Although we still have lots more to learn, we can now say with certainty something we haven’t been able to say for a long time: the NBA will in fact crown a 2020 champion.