6A — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 2020
SPORTS
NBA off ers clarity on tiebreakers
for teams with uneven schedules
By Tim Reynolds
Associated Press
MIAMI — The NBA
has told teams that
playoff seeding will be
based on winning per-
centage, and that any tie-
breakers necessary after
that will follow the usual
procedures.
It was an issue that
needed clarity because
the 22 teams that will
be going to the Disney
complex near Orlando,
Florida, for the planned
resumption of the season
next month will not have
played the same number
of games.
The NBA told teams of
the plan for utilizing tie-
breakers in a memo late
Friday.
Based on the league
plan for the restart, with
games starting again in
late July, Dallas will end
up playing an NBA-high
75 contests.
Most others will play
between 72 and 74; the
low total will be 71,
which San Antonio and
the Los Angeles Lakers
will fi nish at if the NBA’s
plans for teams to play
eight games at the Disney
complex before the play-
offs begin comes to
fruition.
The NBA has not yet
revealed how team sched-
ules will be adjusted once
play resumes without
Atlanta, Charlotte, Chi-
cago, Cleveland, Detroit,
Golden State, Minnesota
and New York taking part
in the remainder of the
2019-20 season.
There are some playoff
races that are particu-
larly close and where the
teams involved will end
up playing a different
number of games.
In the East, Brooklyn
and Orlando are separated
by a half-game and the
Nets will end up with one
less game than the Magic.
In the West, four
teams — Portland, New
Orleans, Sacramento and
San Antonio — are all
separated by a half-game
in the race for ninth place
and potentially a berth in
a play-in series.
The gap between those
four teams is .010 per-
centage points, and the
Trail Blazers will play 74
games, the Pelicans and
Kings will both play 72
and the Spurs 71.
Typically, NBA teams
play 82 games — which
wasn’t possible this
season because of the
coronavirus pandemic
and the suspension of the
season on March 11.
This will be the fi rst
season in which NBA
teams play an uneven
number of games since
2012-13, when a game
between the Boston
Celtics and Indiana
Pacers was canceled in
response to the Boston
Marathon bombing.
The Celtics and Pacers
fi nished at 81 games,
though that did not have
any impact on playoff
seeding that season.
MLB off ers 76-game season,
up to 75% of player salaries
By Ronald Blum
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Major
League Baseball teams
made a new offer to start
the coronavirus-delayed
season, proposing they
guarantee 50% of players’
prorated salaries over a
76-game regular season
and increase the money to
75% if the postseason is
completed, people familiar
with the plan told The
Associated Press.
The people spoke on
condition of anonymity
Monday because details
were not announced.
MLB’s latest offer
would eliminate the loss
of draft picks for teams
that sign qualifi ed free
agents this fall, a change
that would be valuable for
some players in what is
expected to be a diffi cult
market. It also would for-
give 20% of the $170 mil-
lion in salaries already
advanced to players during
April and May.
Players agreed in March
to a deal calling for pro-
rated salaries that depend
on games played, a deal
in exchange for a guar-
antee of service time if the
season was scrapped.
MLB says it can’t
afford to play in ball-
parks without fans and
last week proposed an
82-game schedule and a
sliding scale of pay cuts
that would cause the big-
gest stars to lose a larger
percentage of their sala-
ries. The union countered
with a 114-game schedule
at prorated pay that would
extend the regular season
by a month through
October.
MLB is worried a
second wave of the virus
would endanger the post-
season — when MLB
receives $787 million in
broadcast revenue.
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