NBA set to return on July 31 without the Warriors

The NBA season is reportedly set to resume on July 31. Not surprisingly, the Golden State Warriors will not be included in the league’s plans to restart.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Board of Governor’s will hold a meeting at 9:30 a.m. PT on Thursday, with the intention of passing the latest return to play proposal. The play will take place in Orlando, at the Walt Disney Resort.

The season resumption will feature 22 teams, all of which are either in the playoffs or have a chance of getting into the playoffs. The remaining eight teams who are non-contenders — including the already eliminated Warriors — will stay home.

Because there is more jockeying for the final seed in the Western Conference, that means that 13 teams from the West are headed to Orlando, while only 9 teams from the East are.

The season will resume with eight regular-season games for each team. At the conclusion of the regular season, the top seven seeds will be locked into their playoff spots, while a potential play-in tournament will take place for the eighth seed if the ninth seed is close.

It’s unclear from Wojnarowski’s wording how close a ninth seed needs to be to earn a play-in tournament. He reports that fewer than four games behind the eighth seed results in a play-in tournament, while more than four games back means the eighth seed gets to keep the seed. We’ll have to wait for clarification to see what happens if someone is exactly four games back.

So there we have it. The NBA will be back in less than two months. And we’ll have to wait until the 2020-21 season to see the Warriors.