NBA Lays Out Its Plans for the 2020-21 Season
Including an all-new “Play-In Tournament”.
The NBA has laid out its plans ahead of the upcoming 2020-21 season, which will include a “Play-In Tournament” to determine which teams will fill the seventh and eight play-off seeds in each conference.
Set to commence on December 22, the NBA’s 75th regular season will feature 72 games for each team: three against each intraconference opponent, five teams from one other intraconference division twice at home, and all five teams from the remaining intraconference division twice on the road.
The 2020-21 regular-season schedule will be released in two segments. The schedule for the first half of the season will be released around the start of training camp, while the second half is set to be released during the latter part of the first half. The All-Star break is scheduled to take place at the beginning of March 2021, in between the first and second half of the regular season.
The NBA has also unanimously approved a proposal to implement a unique “Play-In Tournament” exclusively for this season only. Set to take place after the regular season and before the first round of the play-offs, this will include the teams with the seventh-highest through the tenth-highest winning percentages in each conference.
The teams with the seventh-highest and eighth-highest winning percentages in each conference will each have two opportunities to win one game to earn a play-off spot. The teams with the ninth and tenth-highest winning percentages in each conference will each have to win two consecutive games to earn a play-off spot.
At the conclusion of the regular season, the team with the seventh-highest winning percentage in each conference will host the team with the eighth-highest winning percentage in its conference in a “Play-In Game”. The winner of this in each conference will be the seventh seed in the play-offs for its conference.
The team with the ninth-highest winning percentage in each conference will host the team with the tenth-highest winning percentage in its conference in a “Play-In Game”.
In other news, Klay Thompson has been ruled out for the upcoming NBA season due to an achilles injury.
