NBA Announces Season Restart Schedule

The wait is almost over.

On March 11 the NBA season was suspended indefinitely after Utah Jazz Center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. Last Friday, after nearly five months of waiting in withdrawal and hoping beyond hope that basketball would return the NBA has announced its official schedule to restart the 2020 season.

After 141 days the NBA will return on July 30.

In an unprecedented string of events, basketball fans were left hanging on a cliff that could have crumbled at any moment had the season been suddenly cancelled. Without any closure of a championship, it would be the first lost season in NBA history.

The ‘impromptu offseason’ did offer some benefits, providing a good opportunity to watch old game film from the current season as well as past years. The early release of “The Last Dance” documentary series allowed fans to collectively look back on some of the greatest moments in NBA history. The basketball community as a whole came together through social media throughout the suspension in an effort to soften the blow of missing out on the season.

It had become clear that the thirst for any sort of basketball content was at an all-time high, at a time when there was effectively no news coming out and no games being played.

After months of uncertainty, NBA fans can rest assured that basketball will be played, and a champion will be crowned.

The NBA also made the following announcements:

• The NBA will restart the season on July 30. The Finals will end no later than October 13.
• The remainder of the season will be held at the Disney World campus in Orlando, Florida without fans in attendance.
• Each team will play eight remaining regular-season games to determine 16-team playoff seeding.
• Should a team in the ninth seed be within four games of the eighth seed in their Conference, a two-game play-in tournament will take place. The ninth seed would need to win both games to advance.
• As of tests conducted last Tuesday 16 of 302 players (~5.3%) tested positive for COVID-19.

The complete schedule for the NBA’s return can be found here.

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