The NBA board of governors has voted in favor of the 22-team format proposed by Adam Silver. It entails a continuation of the 2019-20 campaign in Orlando, with a 22-team, play-in style chase for the title.
Full details of the NBA’s return, via ESPN:
– 22 teams, returning July 31st.
– 8 regular season games per team.
– 16 current playoff teams, and Suns, Spurs, Pelicans, Kings, Wizards, and Blazers.
– Play-in tournament for the 8-seed (double elimination).
Basketball is BACK.
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) June 3, 2020
The Portland Trail Blazers were the only team to vote against this format, as reported by Shams Charania.
Sources: Portland was the lone team that voted against the 22-team format. https://t.co/WxxADXEkNb
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 4, 2020
A lot of people are questioning why, but ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski was quick to offer up Portland’s reasoning.
Sources: Blazers are eager to resume season, but chose to vote “No” because franchise believed there were more competitive and innovative formats on table — including those that addressed 2020 NBA Draft lottery odds based on regular-season game results in Orlando.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 4, 2020
The path to the postseason is hard for Portland, especially in this format. They’d have to win nearly all of their next eight games and would then have to beat Memphis twice in a best of two series to earn the eight seed.
Still, it seems they’ll have no other choice. Though the odds are technically stacked against them, the return of players who have been out for most (or all) of the season may help their bid for a title.
Namely, the return of Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins will serve as a much-needed boost for them.
We’ll see if it’ll be enough to yield the results they desire.
