NBA team scrimmages released ahead of the restart
Less than a month before the NBA is slated to resume the 2019-20 season (July 30), the league has released its schedule for scrimmages that teams participating in the restart will partake in before the eight seeding games begin.
Teams are expected to travel into the Orlando/Disney bubble this week with hopes of beginning its mini-training camp ahead of the restart of the season. Teams are expected to arrive in the bubble July 7-9. Included in the mini-training camp is scheduled team scrimmages that will take place between teams that are not expected to meet each other in the playoffs.
The NBA recently released the scrimmage schedule:
The NBA’s scrimmage game schedule — with Clippers, Nuggets, Heat and Pelicans all opening play on July 22: pic.twitter.com/znph78RAWW
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 4, 2020
Despite the interest around the league, it’s highly unlikely that these will be televised. With that said, these scrimmages could be a good indication of the type of product that we will see when the eight seeding games and the playoffs begin.
The hope is that the NBA can get to this point in the bubble without any widespread spread of COVID-19. Even though we’ve already seen many positive results around the league, the hope is that any spread of the virus will be limited once teams enter the bubble.
On top of keeping the spread of COVID-19 limited in the bubble, the hope is that there also won’t major injuries once play begin. That could emerge as an issue with players and teams jumping so quickly into action.
If everything goes smoothly over the course of the next few weeks, league play is expected to begin July 30 with teams playing eight “seeding” games, followed by the playoffs which will be the traditional best-of-seven series.
This will be a big week for the NBA. If they can get through this week without any big issues, perhaps there’s a good chance the bubble will in fact be a success. At this point, the league is holding its collective breath.