Although there now is some concern being expressed by players, the NBA is operating with an updated timeline that calls for the 2019-20 regular season to resume July 30 at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
The playoffs are expected to continue until Oct. 13, which is the proposed final day of the season, where a potential Game 7 of the NBA Finals would take place. However, what’s more up in the air is everything that’s slated to happen before July 30.
There is still a ton that needs to be addressed in terms of health concerns, social justice, and getting players back to game shape. Training camps in home facilities are scheduled to resume at the end of this month, and that will carryover to Orlando starting the second week of July.
Now, in another addition to the training camp schedule, teams will reportedly be allowed to play three scrimmages the week prior to the July 30 start date, according to Marc Stein of The New York Times:
NBA teams have been notified that they will be allowed to play three scrimmages at Walt Disney World between July 9-29 before the scheduled resumption of the season July 30
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 12, 2020
The Orlando training camps will span 20 days, and the NBA is planning for all of these scrimmages to take place in the final eight days of that, from July 21-29.
This would give teams a total of about four weeks to train as a team without others present. Then, they would have a fifth week of scrimmages, and then the regular season would begin and last 16 days. In total, playoff teams would have about seven weeks of increased intensity training before they would have to play in playoff games.
While injury concerns are still absolutely valid for some players, especially those who are soon to be free agents, the NBA has done a fairly great job in this plan to minimize those risks. While there are always freak accidents, it seems as though the lack of training shouldn’t be a reason for injuries.
Obviously the NBA has a lot more work to do with regard to finalizing their return plan, as there are still so many things that need to be addressed and decided on the health side of things. But so far, the NBA has shown to be as thorough as possible.