The NBA suspended its season due to the coronavirus outbreak.
What about the 259 previously scheduled games (15-19 per team) that haven’t been played?
Adrian Wojnarowski on ESPN:
Just a few hours ago, the NBA was planning to continue games, without fans in attendance. Let’s pump the brakes on trusting the league on how the rest of the season will go.
Jazz center Rudy Gobert testing positive for coronavirus shook plans. We’re only beginning to see how this pandemic will affect the world, inside and outside the NBA. When will it be safe for the NBA to resume games? That’s the key question in how to proceed, and the league can’t yet know the answer.
A shortened regular-season schedule that ends near the original playoff start date (April 18) would cause relatively little disruption. At this point, that’s a reasonable outcome to hope for. But it should be treated as just a hope.
The teams chasing the Grizzlies for the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference – Trail Blazers, Pelicans, Kings, Spurs – might gripe about reduced opportunity to catch up. At least the East playoff field is pretty secure.
There are obviously bigger concerns than a playoff race, though.