Latest on Spurs Return in NBA Season Resumption

2

After the NBA postponed all their games in early March due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it seems like the NBA season is on the verge of resuming in a modified format. Among the 22 teams that will most likely be part of the resumed season will be the San Antonio Spurs, according to reporting from ESPN, the Athletic, and Yahoo! Sports. Here’s the latest.

The NBA is scheduled to hold a call with the board of governors for all 30 teams on Thursday at 11:30 am CT. During that call, a vote will be held to see if a majority of teams will agree to resume the season with just 22 teams in Florida at Disney World. The season resumption would begin July 31 and the final date of a game 7 of the NBA Finals would be October 12.

The 22 teams will be the 16 seeds that held playoff spots when the season paused and the six teams that were within six games of being a playoff seed in the standings.

The San Antonio Spurs would be one of those six teams because they were 27-36 when the season paused, placing them just four games behind the Memphis Grizzlies in the 8th seed. Along with the Spurs, Portland, New Orleans, Sacramento, Phoenix, and Washington would also be the teams invited to fight for the 8th seeds.

There’s the potential for a play-in tournament for the 8th seed if the 9th-seed team is within four or less games of the 8th seed when the final games of the regular season have been played. If the 9th-seed is not within four games in the standings, then the 8th seed gets the final playoff spot.

To give the 8th seed team more of an advantage to keep their playoff spot, should a play-in tournament be used, the 8th seed can only lose their spot if they lose two games to the 9th seed. If the 9th seed loses one game in the tournament, then they’re eliminated.

It was also reported by one of the outlets that the teams would resume the next 8 games on their regular season schedule. If a team has a game scheduled against a team that’s not participating in the resumption, then the team would look for their next opponent on the schedule who is participating.

The Spurs’ next 8 games on their schedule were supposed to be against the Nuggets, Timberwolves, Grizzlies, Pelicans, Bulls, Jazz (twice), and Timberwolves.

Since the Timberwolves and Bulls won’t be part of this resumption, it’s unknown for now how those three games will be played if that indeed is how the regular season will be resumed.

As long as the vote reaches a 3/4 majority by the board of governors on Thursday, Spurs basketball will be returning this summer.

 

2 COMMENTS

    • No, it looks like the Spurs are locked into 11th unless they get the 8th seed. Per the NBA: “The 14 NBA Lottery teams would be the eight teams that do not participate in the restart and the six teams that participate in the restart but do not qualify for the playoffs. These teams would be seeded in the lottery and assigned odds based on their records through games of March 11. The 16 playoff teams would draft in inverse order of their combined records across regular-season games and seeding games.”

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here