On June 2nd, 2020, the NBA board of governors voted on a 22-team plan to resume the season. They approved the new team format to restart the season in the summer in which games would be played at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The plan was approved Thursday with a 29-1 vote, according to ESPN. The Portland Trailblazers, as The Athletic reported, were the lone team to vote against the format. The top eight teams in each conference would be invited to Disney World along with the Trail Blazers, Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs, and the Washington Wizards . The league’s training camp period would start June 30 and the teams would fly to Orlando on July 7. The league would tip-off again on July 31 and a Game 7 of a potential NBA Finals series would be on October 12. The NBA Draft and free agency would begin soon after, and each team would play eight regular-season games before the playoffs would start.
There will be some changes to how the rest of the season is formatted. For the remainder of the season, each of the 22 teams will be playing eight games, but there will be no fans in attendance. Additionally, the league is giving the ninth seed (Washington Wizards from eastern conference and Portland Trailblazers from Western Conference), a chance to make it into the playoffs. In order to do this, the ninth seed will have to beat the eighth seed twice in a row. The playoffs will be played as usual with Game 7 most likely being on October 7th, according to New York Times.
After a disappointing end to the NBA season, this reopening is something that fans across the country are looking forward to.
