SALT LAKE CITY — Only 22 of the 30 NBA teams were invited to participate in the league’s restart of the 2019-20 season in Orlando — the top eight seeds in each conference, along with the next best six teams, which ended up being five teams from the Western Conference and one team from the Eastern Conference. So where does that leave the remaining eight teams?
Up until Thursday, it was assumed that those teams — the Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, Golden State Warriors, Minnesota Timberwolves and the New York Knicks — would simply be done with the 2019-20 season.