Sacramento Kings and other NBA Teams Planning July 31 Return
By Joey Tack on June 3, 2020
While it’s not official yet, many news outlets are reporting that a number of NBA teams, including Sacramento, will resume play at the end of July.
Deseret News reports:
The NBA intends to approve commissioner Adam Silver’s proposal of the NBA resuming play on July 31 in Orlando, with a 22-team format, according to multiple reports.
The news, first reported by The Athletic’s Shams Charania on Wednesday, confirms what has trickled out over the last week regarding how the NBA will look when play resumes at Walt Disney World.
The NBA’s board of governors, scheduled to meet Thursday, will vote on the proposal, in which each of the 22 teams will play eight regular-season games. Then, if the ninth seed is more than four games behind the eighth seed, the eighth seed will lock in its playoff spot. If the ninth seed is four games or fewer behind the eighth seed, a play-in tournament will determine the final seed before the playoffs begin.
The play-in tournament will be decided by double-elimination for the eighth seed and single-elimination for ninth.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the 22 teams will be made up of 13 Western Conference teams and nine Eastern conference teams (the top eight teams in each conference based on current record, plus 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).
