The scheduled date for the restart of the 2019-2020 NBA season in Orlando, Florida is released today. Like each of the 22 participating teams, the Portland Trail Blazers will play 8 games in the regular season. 16 participants will continue to the NBA 2020 Playoffs, also on the Disney campus in Orlando.
Portland’s summer schedule reads as follows:
- July 31 against the Memphis Grizzlies
- August 2 against the Boston Celtics
- August 4 against the Houston Rockets
- August 6 against the Denver Nuggets
- August 8 against the Los Angeles Clippers
- August 9 against the Philadelphia 76’ers
- August 11 against the Dallas Mavericks
- August 13 against the Brooklyn Nets
Portland is 29-37, 3.5 games behind the Grizzlies in eighth place in the NBA Western Conference. They’ll have to stay within the Grizzlies’ four games to earn a place in the play-in tournament to make the playoffs.
For those curious, the average winning percentage among participating teams is 57.2%. The winning percentage among Portland’s eight opponents is 60.0%.
The Blazers play three Top 3 seeds between conferences (Celtics, Clippers, and Nuggets), but none of the # 1 teams. They don’t play teams outside of the Top 8, therefore, there are no teams with a worse record than them.
Here are the schedules of the teams Portland is competing against in the conference.
The Grizzlies game:
Blazers, Spurs, Pelicans, Jazz, Thunder, Raptors, Celtics and Bucks.
Combined winning percentage: 59.7%, with three teams equal to or worse than on the calendar.
The Pelicans Game:
Jazz, Clippers, Grizzlies, Kings, Wizards, Spurs, Kings and Magic.
Combined winning percentage: 49.5%, with four teams equal to or worse than on the calendar. [ed. How cab you assemble a field of teams either making or close to making the playoffs but still give a team a schedule against opponents with a net losing record?]
The Kings Play:
Spurs, Mavericks, Magic, Pelicans, Nets, Rockets, Pelicans, Lakers
Combined winning percentage: 52.9%, with three teams equal to or worse than on the calendar.
The Spurs Play:
Kings, Grizzlies, Sixers, Nuggets, Jazz, Pelicans, Rockets, Jazz
Combined winning percentage: 56.6%, without the same or worse teams than on the calendar.
Thanks to @AJ_McCord and @WorldWideWob who got the Portland news first via Twitter.
