AP photo by John Raoux / The ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at the Walt Disney World Resort in Kissimmee, Fla., shown Wednesday, is set to host the 22 NBA teams eligible to complete the 2019-20 season.For the NBA, it is not officially time to play. It’s getting closer, but the league isn’t there yet.
The move to agree on a 22-team format for the resumption of the pandemic-interrupted 2019-20 season is a major step forward, but it was just the first of many major decisions that have to be made before the league moves into the ESPN Wide Wide Of Sports Complex at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida, next month.
Another step was completed Friday as expected when the representatives from the National Basketball Players Association voted to unanimously approve the proposal that the NBA’s Board of Governors approved a day earlier.
More talks and negotiations are scheduled for the coming days to work out everything else, and it is a sizable list. A look at some of the other challenges facing the league, both in the quest to finish this season and then what awaits in 2020-21:
TESTING
The format was a significant hurdle, but not the biggest one for the NBA to clear in this process.
That one, by far, is testing. The medical protocol is the most critical part of the plan for resuming games.
The league and its players know they must go above and beyond in the interest of safety. The protocol is the key: Players will have to practice social distancing when they aren’t on the court, plus submit to a quarantine at the beginning of the time at Disney and likely daily testing for the entirety of their stay there.
Players and coaches likely won’t even be able to have their families with them until September, at the earliest.
A person with direct knowledge of the talks said the NBA and the players’ union have been working on what will be a lengthy list of regulations and practices that, among other things, will explain what happens when a player or coach tests positive while at Disney.
THE GAMES
The season is set to resume July 31, with the playoffs starting in mid-August and leading up to an NBA Finals that could stretch until Oct. 12.
Other than the Eastern Conference’s Milwaukee Bucks and the Western Conference’s Los Angeles Lakers, who are all but certain of going into the playoffs with No. 1 seeds, every team at Disney will be playing for either a playoff spot or an improved seed.
The dynamic at the bottom of the East is fascinating with the Brooklyn Nets and the Orlando Magic separated by a half-game, and the Washington Wizards are just 1 1/2 games out of getting into a two-game play-in series for the No. 8 spot.
Out West, expect craziness with six teams basically assured of fighting for one berth.
The team that emerges from that mess will be loaded with confidence heading into the opening round against the Lakers. That means LeBron James and his teammates will have to be sharp right away, because they will face a team that’s hot.
THE OTHER EIGHT
Consider this: The Detroit Pistons didn’t win a game in March, and now they won’t play in April, May, June, July, August, September, October or November.
The Pistons’ most recent win was Feb. 28. The rough – very rough – draft of the NBA calendar suggests next season will start Dec. 1.
That’s almost nine full months without games. Meanwhile, the 2020 NBA finalists aren’t even slated to get nine weeks off before next season starts – and every team will have to cram a draft and free agency into very small windows next fall.
It will be a long break for the Pistons, as well as the Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavalilers, Golden State Warriors, Minnesota Timberwolves and New York Knicks.
The Warriors’ Klay Thompson last played a year ago, when he tore his ACL in the NBA Finals. He’s basically going to go a year and a half without playing a real game. The same is true for Kevin Durant, Thompson’s former teammate who signed with Brooklyn in the offseason after rupturing his Achilles’ tendon in the title series but has yet to play a game for the Nets and won’t do so in Florida, either.
“This certainly wasn’t how we hoped our season would come to an end, and it’s fair to say that we are disappointed that our young team will not be allowed to gain more valuable time playing together by being included in the restart of the season,” Hawks general manager Travis Schlenk and coach Lloyd Pierce said in a joint statement released Friday.
There’s a lot of teams feeling that same way.
NEXT SEASON
The very long wait for the eight teams not going to Disney World and the very short offseason for the teams that go deep into the playoffs are not the only scheduling challenge on the table right now.
If the NBA goes forward with a normal regular season in 2020-21, a Dec. 1 start date means next years playoffs wouldn’t start until late May and could reach into late July.
And that calls into question whether NBA players could take part in the Olympics, which has qualifying scheduled for June 2021 for the final four spots in the men’s field and then the Tokyo Games themselves beginning on July 23, 2021.
USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo has said the Americans will wait and see what the NBA schedule really is before reacting and setting a firm plan for picking a team for Tokyo next summer.
For the players who play deep into this season, then play deep into next season, that’s a lot of basketball without a lot of time off, though – and that could make the job of picking an Olympic team much tougher than usual.