Owners approve NBA’s 22-team restart plan. A look at what it means for playoff-bound Heat
The NBA took a big step forward in its attempt to resume the 2019-20 season amid the COVID-19 pandemic on Thursday. And as expected, the Miami Heat is very much a part of the league’s plan.
The NBA’s Board of Governors approved NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s proposal on a 22-team format to restart the season near Orlando this summer after play was suspended on March 11. According to The New York Times, the National Basketball Players Association has scheduled a virtual meeting for Friday to discuss the NBA’s return-to-play plan.
Under the format approved by owners Thursday, the season is tentatively set to resume July 31 at a fan-less quarantine-type environment at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex and will include regular-season, which the NBA is calling “seeding games,” and possible play-in games to compete for playoff berths in the Eastern and Western Conference.
“The Board’s approval of the restart format is a necessary step toward resuming the NBA season,” Silver said in a statement issued Thursday afternoon. “While the COVID-19 pandemic presents formidable challenges, we are hopeful of finishing the season in a safe and responsible manner based on strict protocols now being finalized with public health officials and medical experts. We also recognize that as we prepare to resume play, our society is reeling from recent tragedies of racial violence and injustice, and we will continue to work closely with our teams and players to use our collective resources and influence to address these issues in very real and concrete ways.”
The 2020 NBA Finals would end no later than Oct. 12. If the season does begin on July 31, the NBA announced the draft lottery would be moved to Aug. 25, the NBA Draft would be held on Oct. 15 and the 2020-21 regular season would likely begin on Dec. 1.
Other dates to know, according to The Athletic: all players will be required to be back in team markets on June 21, team COVID-19 testing begins on June 22, teams begin training camp practices on June 30, all teams begin reporting to Walt Disney World on July 7, free agency begins Oct. 18 and training camp for the 2020-21 season begins Nov. 10.
The NBA’s return-to-play plan calls for the 22 teams to play eight “seeding games” at the Disney site that will be added to current regular-season records to determine the final standings entering the playoffs. The Associated Press reported there will also be exhibition games held at the complex before teams restart the regular season.
The Heat owns the fourth-best record in the Eastern Conference at 41-24, with the eight-game regular-season format assuring it a Southeast Division title for the second time in three seasons and a spot in the playoffs for just the third time in six seasons. Miami has not won a playoff series since eliminating the Charlotte Hornets in the first round in 2016.
But the Heat’s playoff seed is still to be determined, with the eight-game format making it possible for Miami to finish anywhere between second and sixth place in the East — although second place is very likely out of reach with the No. 2 Toronto Raptors 5.5 games ahead of the Heat. Miami is 2.5 games behind the third-place Boston Celtics and two games ahead of the fifth-place Indiana Pacers and sixth-place Philadelphia 76ers.
The 22-team plan that was approved features the 16 teams currently in playoff spots and six more teams within six games of the eighth seed in each conference. Those extra six teams are the Portland Trail Blazers, New Orleans Pelicans, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference, and the Washington Wizards in the Eastern Conference.
How will the NBA put together the eight-game regular-season schedule for each team? The modified schedule has yet to be officially announced, but a report from Yahoo! Sports indicates the league’s thinking is to have teams play their next eight originally scheduled games that come against the 22 teams continuing their seasons.
But that rule doesn’t work cleanly for some teams, including the Heat, because some would reach eight games quicker than others. However, just a few tweaks can resolve those issues if the original schedule is used as the base to create the shortened version.
The Heat’s next eight scheduled games that come against one of the 22 teams taking part in the season’s resumption are: vs. Milwaukee Bucks, vs. Pacers, vs. Oklahoma City Thunder, vs. Denver Nuggets, vs. Suns, vs. Celtics, vs. Pacers and vs. Celtics. But to create Miami’s final eight-game schedule if the NBA uses the original schedule as the shell of the new one, this eight-game list needs to be somewhat modified because of logistical issues.
The potential play-in tournament will come after the completion of the regular season and would be for the eighth seed and would work as follows: If the ninth seed is more than four games behind the eighth seed, the eighth seed earns the playoff spot; if the ninth seed is four or fewer games behind, then the eighth and ninth seed will enter a play-in tournament that is double-elimination for the eighth seed and single-elimination for the ninth seed.
Once the 16-team playoff field is set, the playoffs will proceed “in a traditional conference-based format with four rounds and best-of-seven series in each round.”
As for the Heat, most of the roster spent the league shutdown in Miami. Fourteen of the Heat’s 17 players under contract (including the two two-way contract players) have remained in South Florida and have been available to participate in voluntary arena workouts during the past three weeks.
The Heat began allowing players to participate in voluntary individual workouts at the team’s AmericanAirlines Arena practice facility on May 13, and attendance from in-town players has been very strong, according to a league source. The fact that many of those who remained in South Florida for the league shutdown are early in their careers and live in condos with no space for a portable basket has probably helped get players to the arena.
The only Heat players who quarantined in another part of the country were Jimmy Butler, Andre Iguodala and Solomon Hill, who each spent most of the league’s shutdown in California.
But according to league sources, Butler returned to South Florida this week after spending most of the NBA hiatus in his San Diego home, and Iguodala also recently returned to South Florida after quarantining in his San Francisco Bay Area home. Hill was the lone Heat player who had not returned to Miami yet as of Wednesday afternoon, but he’s expected to be in South Florida soon after spending most of the shutdown in Los Angeles.
Regarding the 2020 draft, the NBA announced “the 14 NBA lottery teams would be the eight teams that do not participate in the restart and the six teams that participate in the restart but do not qualify for the playoffs. These teams would be seeded in the lottery and assigned odds based on their records through games of March 11. The 16 playoff teams would draft in inverse order of their combined records across regular-season games and seeding games.”
While the league’s restart format has come into focus, the protocols for keeping those within the NBA’s Disney bubble safe and healthy remain largely unknown. On Thursday, the Associated Press reported the National Basketball Players Association and the NBA are working on a “lengthy” medical protocols document for the season’s resumption and the details will be shared with teams once those discussions are completed.
According to The Athletic, the medical protocols that have been discussed are having players shower in their respective hotels after games, bench players sitting in spread-out rows, inactive players sitting in the stands and no outside guests allowed until the playoffs. Rigorous COVID-19 testing for all involved will also surely be a big part of the NBA’s return.
“The NBA and the NBPA are working with infectious disease specialists, public health experts and government officials to establish a rigorous program to prevent and mitigate the risk related to COVID-19, including a regular testing protocol and stringent safety practices,” the NBA said in a statement. “The season restart is also contingent on an agreement with The Walt Disney Company to use Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida, as a single site for a campus for all games, practices and housing for the remainder of the season. “
This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 2:15 PM.
