The NBA, which will subject franchise owners to a vote Thursday to resume its season starting July 31 at Disney World (Florida), wants to set October 12 as its potential epilogue, ESPN said on Tuesday. This date would correspond to the 7th possible game of the NBA finals, specifies the sports channel citing anonymous sources within the league.
Last Friday, the commissioner Adam Silver had indicated to the club bosses that he was targeting the date of July 31 to resume, in the Orlando bubble, the championship in forced break since March 11. He submitted to them a preferential plan involving 22 teams, the format of which is to play a few remaining games of the regular season, then to organize play-off play-offs with the teams which are six or less victories from 8th place in each conference.
The NBA is talking to Disney to resume its season in Orlando at the end of July via @ 20minutesSport https://t.co/8lEpY4IigX
- 20 Minutes Sport (@ 20minutesSport) May 24, 2020The NBA, which is also in close discussion with the players' union (NBPA), needs a three-quarters majority of the owners to approve a return to play plan. ESPN says a very large majority of them plan to vote for . This scenario would not include teams with eight chances of winning the play-offs. If some clubs like the Golden State Warriors seem to be content with it, arguing that they have no sporting interest in playing a few games at the end of the regular season, others like the Atlanta Hawks refuse such a shelving.
"I coach the youngest team in the NBA. And the best thing we can get is to play basketball again. If the season starts again and we don't participate, it will affect our progress, our production, our ability to continue our momentum for next season, "said coach Lloyd Pierce at ESPN. The penultimate of the Eastern Conference, the Hawks still had fifteen games to play before the pandemic.
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