It’s back!

The top 8 teams of both the East and West comes back to play as well as teams that are within six games of the 8th playoff team in each conference.The final order of the playoff standings will be determined by winning percentages and will be playing 8 regular season games. If the 9th place team is within 4 games of the 8th seed, both teams will do a play-in tournament where the 8th seed needing only a win to officially enter the playoffs.Then follows the regular four-round playoff format with best-of-seven series.

The Spurs’ post season streak is still on with 22 consecutive playoff appearances dating back to 1998.  But it’s a long hard climb for at least a play-in as they have to go thru the Phoenix, Memphis, Portlnad, New Orleans, and Sacramneto. The season is officially over for Minnesota, Golden State, Cleveland, Detroit, New York, Charlotte, Chicago and Atlanta. 

Players out of the US are required to report to their home teams on June 15 and all players must be in by June 21.  CoVid testing will be on the following day.  Training camp begins on June 30 and all 22 teams will travel on July 7 to Walt Disney World in Orlando where ESPN’s Wide World of Sports is based.  Season resumes on July 31. 

For precautions, players will have daily oral or nasal swab tests and if found positive, will be quarantined for a minimum of 7 days.Games will continue with no fans in attendance.Bench players need to sit far apart and inactive players must watch from the stands.  There will be no showering in arenas after games and until the second round of the playoffs, players can only bring 3 family members. Forget roaming around the parks and the rides as the players’ association won’t be allowing the players nor their family members to do so.  With empty and almost quiet arenas, will the NBA follow Korea’s example of filling baseball stands with stuffed animals or of Bundesliga’s airing recorded fan shouting and applause?

As per ESPN, the league will use 3 different facilities at the Wide World of Sports complex.“There will be up to seven games per day over roughly three weeks during the August regular season, which the NBA has branded ‘seeding games’, and it is likely there will be weekday afternoon playoff games during the first round.”

Dependent on the decisions of the NBPA, teams left out of the expanded post season want to get some work done because they feel they missed out on important player development.They want voluntary and mandatory July workouts, mini camps in August with team practices and organized team activities by September. Think of Trae Young and Jaxson Hayes (ATL), RJ Barret and Mitchell Robinson (NYK), Coby White (CHI), Collin Sexton (CLE) and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (CHA) getting lumpy.

Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins could be playing for Portland. They had enough time to recover from their leg injuries and with Damian Lillard, this make the Blazers dangerous. Likewise the Sixers improved their chances with both Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons healthy. JA Morant and Zion Williamson could battle for the 8th seed and whichever team qualifies, the ROY award is a lock.   We still won’t be seeing Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving play.

Kawhi Leonard won league titles with San Antonio and Toronto.   He also won Finals MVP with the Spurs and Raptors, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and LeBron James as the only players in league history to get the award with two different franchises.   He now has the likelihood of being the only player to win MVP honors with three different teams.   And who will be this year’s MVP - Giannis or LeBron?

Augst 25 will be the Lottery Draft.  The playoffs end on October 12 with the Rookie Draft following 3 days later, then on October 18, free aganecy begins.Training camp starts on November 10 for the 2020-2021 season, which will open on December 1.

In its 77 years of existence, the league will have a peculiar season ending and in less than two months, a new season begins.  Strange times, tight schedules but, let the games begin because, it’s baaack!