Imagine Mickey Mouse with a basketball in hand. Or, if you prefer, LeBron James running around the parquet dressed, say, as Donald Duck. You choose the combination you prefer between the NBA and the Disney world, but know that starting from July 31st your fantasy will come true. America has decided, with a sensational choice that only Covid-19 could dictate, to bring together two of its most profitable and most famous industries in the world: the NBA, the basketball tournament of the stars, reopens its doors and it will do so not in each of the arenas of the 30 participating franchises, but at the Disneyworld complex in Orlando, Florida. The amusement park, closed due to viruses, therefore becomes the neutral territory for the occasion within which to lock down all the participating teams and play the last games of the regular season, the playoffs and the finals.
With a formula that inevitably will be new and arranged. Meanwhile, of the 30 teams normally in contention, only 22 will return to the field at the end of July (any game 7 of the Finals would be played on October 12), i.e. those that before the stop were realistically in the running for the playoffs. There will therefore be all the big names, and the remaining regular season matches will be reduced to 8 per team: just enough to safeguard television contracts, even though the 171 canceled games equate to a total loss in player salary of approximately $600 million. After the season there will be the playoffs, possibly preceded (if at the end of the regular season the eighth and ninth teams of each conference are separated by 4 or less games) by the novelty of the play-in tournament. Eighth and ninth team would face each other in a direct clash: if the first wins, its qualification for the playoffs is immediate; if the second wins, another challenge between the two teams takes place, this time decisive: whoever wins goes to the playoffs.
As far as the actual playoffs are concerned, the formula does not change, that is, it remains unchanged compared to that of recent years. Once the 16 teams (8 per conference) that enter the postseason have been established, all the series - first round, conference semifinal, conference final and then the NBA final - will take place in the best of 7 games, even if there will no longer be the home factor. Not only because all the games will take place at Disneyworld, but also and above all because the NBA has confirmed that all games will take place behind closed doors. The teams in the field are: Milwaukee, Toronto, Boston, Miami, Indiana, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Orlando and Washington; Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers, Denver, Utah, Oklahoma City, Houston, Dallas, Memphis, Portland, New Orleans, Sacramento, San Antonio and Phoenix. Season already over for last year's finalists, the Golden State Warriors.
The NBA has already established other aspects relating to next season, which should start again on December 1st (still at Disneyworld?) and not at Christmas as originally assumed. The Lottery will be held on August 25 (to determine the order of picks in the Draft), while the Draft will take place on October 15 and only three days later (October 18) will the free agency kick off, with all the negotiations market.
