More news came out Wednesday morning about the NBA’s return to play, with reports by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and The Athletic’s Shams Charania indicating that a 22-team revival will take place in Orlando later this summer. That leaves eight teams, including the Atlanta Hawks, out of play.
Each qualifying team will get eight regular-season games, which will work as both warm-ups for teams locked into the playoffs and do-or-die games for teams on the outside looking in currently. At the conclusion of the new regular season, there would be a play-in for the eight seeds for teams fewer than four games out of the seed.