Report: Return Plan Approved by NBA Board of Governors

It’s baaaaaaaaaaack. After yesterday’s report that the 22-team return plan was expected to be approved, Adrian Wojnarowski reports that NBA owners followed through and officially said “aye” to Adam Silver’s outline of how NBA basketball will return to business.

The outlines of the plan were detailed yesterday, but it will be the thirteen Western Conference teams and nine Eastern Conference teams making the trek to Orlando. Other details include:

• Each team will play eight regular season games (following what would’ve been their upcoming schedule pre-cancellation to the best of our knowledge right now)
• Play-in tournament for the final seed in each conference as long as the nine-seed is within four games of the eighth seed. In that scenario, the nine seed would have to win both games of a 2-game series, the eight seed would only have to win once.
• Standard playoff format with each conference going ahead with the standard seeding we’re used to from year’s past.
• Training camp will begin on June 30 as well as other details included in the below from Shams Charania:

Additionally, this pushback of the NBA calendar has obviously affected the NBA draft dates as well, which will take place just three days after the last possible day of the playoffs, October 12.

We still have little to no details on how exactly the NBA plans to handle some of the more fluid questions regarding return to play, including what would happen should a player test positive for COVID-19. For the sake and health of everyone involved, let’s hope Adam Silver discusses that in more details soon.

For now, the official date to return assuages any lingering concerns that the Bucks might not be able to play out their chance at a championship. Basketball is back in less than two months folks. As more details trickle out, we’ll continue to update this post.