The results of a survey sent out by the NBA to its 30 general managers arrived on Friday in the form of a report from Shams Charania of The Athletic, and it shows a majority of league decision-makers prefer a more expansive structure when the season resumes this summer in Orlando.
Sources: NBA has sent GMs the results from GM survey:
– 53% of GMs chose advancing directly to playoffs; 27% for resuming abbreviated season with play-in
– 60% voted for 72-game season
– “Playoffs Plus”: 83% voted 20 or more teams
– Non-playoff teams split on resuming season— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 29, 2020
A whopping 83 percent wanted 20 or more teams to be included, and it’s worth considering why there’s such widespread support for a bigger bubble. More games means more television revenue, and a negotiated expansion of the league’s TV contracts could help offset the loss of ticket and local TV revenue. There is also probably an aspect of fairness, as the race for the eighth seed in the Western Conference was set to be among the top storylines in the league this spring. Cutting those teams out would be hard.
Along those same lines, Charania reports that non-playoff teams are split on resuming the season. Likely the teams that want to come back are younger and value the competition more. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski recently listed the Atlanta Hawks as one young, non-playoff squad that would be eager to play again this summer.
On the matter of playoff seeding, with much discussion among fans this week centering around reseeding or using a World Cup-style group stage, Charania reported 53 percent of GMs want to maintain usual playoff seeding.
Additional results from NBA’s GM survey, per sources:
– Most GMs want season to end no later than Oct. 1
– GMs want larger roster/more flexibility to manage their roster
– 53 percent voted to maintain traditional playoff seeding; 47 percent for reseeding https://t.co/sVwYF0ZYPT— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 29, 2020
The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor provided further clarity on the structure of the back end of the playoffs when he reported that 75 percent of NBA GMs supported a play-in tournament for the final playoff seeds, compared to just 25 percent for a group stage. This would mean sending 3-5 extra teams from each conference to Orlando to play out a mini-tournament for the respective eighth seeds.
The NBA is not due to make a firm decision on the structure of its July bubble season until next week, according to Wojnarowski, but it’s likely that the results of this survey will hold weight when commissioner Adam Silver and the league office ultimately make a proposal to the players.