SALT LAKE CITY — Pending approval from the league’s board of governors, the NBA will officially move forward with a plan to resume NBA games beginning July 31.
During a Thursday meeting, NBA commissioner Adam Silver will present his resumption plan to the board, which is expected to ratify the plan without hesitation.
According to multiple reports Wednesday from The Athletic’s Shams Charania and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the plan Silver will present consists of 22 teams descending on Walt Disney World in Orlando. Each team would play eight regular-season games, a possible play-in tournament to determine the eighth seed in each conference and full-length traditional playoffs, each round decided by a best-of-seven series, and an eventual 2020 NBA champion being crowned at a latest possible date of Oct. 12.
The NBA draft combine and lottery are expected to be held in August, with the NBA draft and a free agency period to follow the conclusion of the 2019-20 season.
There are many smaller details that go into this plan, and we’ll get to those a little later. But right now, what does this all mean for the Utah Jazz?
Looking back
Let’s go back to that March 11 night in Oklahoma City, when the Jazz were at the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.
Before everything was halted by COVID-19, the Jazz were one game removed from a five-game win streak, finding rhythm between lineups and rotational changes, and comfortably sitting at fourth in the Western Conference.
Then, Rudy Gobert’s positive coronavirus test brought the NBA to a standstill.
As the virus swept through the country there were many who wondered if the 2019-20 NBA season would be canceled outright, ending a season without a champion for the first time.
Conversations and rumors circulated for weeks about different possibilities for the league to resume play, eventually landing on what would be known as a “bubble concept” that would utilize a sole location to host the league with strict measures to ensure the health and safety of those involved.
As the league continued its dialogue, holding regular meetings between the league office, the National Basketball Players Association, coaches, general managers and the board of governors, the Jazz were swept up in controversy when reports surfaced about tension between Gobert and fellow face of the franchise Donovan Mitchell.
The alleged rift was born out of frustration at Gobert’s lack of tact regarding the virus. From all on-the-record accounts by teammates and front office personnel, the Jazz have moved on from any personal differences between the players.
Even as the noise surrounding Mitchell and Gobert died down, however, the Jazz were dealt another blow when one of the team’s premier scorers, Bojan Bogdanovic, underwent season-ending surgery on his right wrist.
Moving forward
Now that the league has arrived at a decision for resuming play and a format to follow, the Jazz know they’ll be heading to Orlando. But, even with that clarity, there are plenty of obstacles for the Jazz and the NBA to overcome.
When the Jazz hit the hardwood at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World, the team will have to contend with rebuilding the chemistry that was just starting to coalesce in mid-March, and they’ll have to do it without one of their most potent perimeter threats.
If the NBA had gone straight to the playoffs after the prolonged hiatus, the Jazz would be facing the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Western Conference’s current fifth seed in the opening round. But, with each of the 22 teams headed to Orlando slated to play eight regular-season games, the playoff standings are not set.
According to reports, the top eight teams in each conference will be joined by the New Orleans Pelicans, Portland Trail Blazers, Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings and San Antonio Spurs in the West and the Washington Wizards in the East; all teams that were within six games of the eighth-place team.
Following the regular-season games, if the ninth seed of either conference is four or fewer games behind the eighth seed, there will be a play-in tournament decided by double elimination for the eighth seed and single elimination for the ninth seed.
Because the Jazz are currently 8.5 games behind the West’s top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers, 9.5 games ahead of the West’s eighth seed, and with just eight games to play before the standings are set in stone, the Jazz are not in danger of falling to the eighth seed and won’t claim the top seed.
Since the Pelicans, Trail Blazers, Suns, Kings, and Spurs can only make up enough ground to earn the eighth seed, the only possible opponents the Jazz could face in the opening round would be one of the other seven teams currently in the top eight of the West (the Lakers, Clippers, Nuggets, Thunder, Rockets, Mavericks and Grizzlies.)
While those in the scouting and planning departments of the Jazz have surely done their due diligence in preparing for multiple scenarios, each of the seven possible opponents presents a unique challenge for the Jazz, who will also have to extend minutes and change rotations to make up for the absence of Bogdanovic.
Scheduling
According to Yahoo Sports’ Vincent Goodwill, a team’s remaining regular-season games will be a continuation of the original regular-season schedule. If a team was scheduled against an opponent that will not be in Orlando, the returning team moves onto the next available opponent. That means the Jazz will play the Thunder, Pelicans, Grizzlies, Lakers twice, Spurs twice and the Mavericks.
As far as remaining schedules go, it’s not the easiest one on the docket, another hill the Jazz will have to climb to remain in the upper echelon of the Western Conference.
Silver said in March, at the beginning of the suspension, that a return to play would be based on data and not dates. But, the league is set to announce its plan Thursday, just a day after Florida’s Department of Health reported 1,317 additional cases of COVID-19, the highest daily total of newly confirmed cases the state has seen since April 17.
The NBA is expected to continue discussions this week about safety procedures and protocols, which will include daily testing, players showering in their respective hotels rather than at the arena, bench players sitting in spread-out rows, inactive players sitting in the stands, and no guests allowed until the playoffs, according to The Athletic.
Players are expected to be allowed a limited number of family members to join them in Orlando once the playoffs begin.
Even with the precautions and social distancing guidelines, risk remains and the NBA has yet to say what would happen if a coach, family member or any other personnel were to test positive for the virus. According to an ESPN report, if a player tests positive, the league intends to quarantine and treat that player individually while play continues.
If the NBA manages to pull off the season restart and complete the playoffs, the hope is that the 2020-21 season can begin in late December. But even then, the NBA will have to face a new set of obstacles as eight of the league’s 30 teams will have been away from the game for nearly nine months.
Thursday’s vote on a plan to resume the season will be the first step in the NBA returning to normalcy, but there is still a lot to figure out. The NBA, the Jazz and every other team have a long road ahead of them.