After weeks and months of debate over how to allow teams who didn’t qualify for the restarted basketball season, the NBA and the NBA Players Association have finalized an agreement to allow the eight eliminated clubs to host voluntary group workouts next month.
The announcement, made Tuesday, will apply to the eight teams that were not invited to participate in the league’s restart plan in Orlando. That group of teams includes the Chicago Bulls, who finished with one of the worst records in the Eastern Conference and failed to qualify for postseason contention.
All workouts will be held in each team’s home market, according to the league.
According to the league, the voluntary workouts will be scheduled to take place between Sept. 14 and Oct. 6, and the program will be implemented in phases, with individual workouts the first week and with daily coronavirus testing for all players and staff planning to participate in the training camp.
The second phase of workouts, which will start on Sept. 21, will consist of training activities, with teams participating in practices, conditioning and intra-squad scrimmages together. Daily coronavirus testing will also be implemented as part of the agreement, the league said.
Instead of all congregating in a single “bubble,” like the league did in Florida, each team will establish its own campus for the duration of the training, with team facilities and private living accommodations in each of the eight cities.
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Players and staff will be required to stay on campus for the duration of the training.
All players currently under contract with teams may participate in the workouts, along with up to five players who were under contract with the teams’ G-League affiliates during the 2019-20 season.
For the Bulls, who just fired head coach Jim Boylen, the resumption of workouts could cause them to speed up their process of bringing a new head coach in, with workouts scheduled to begin in less than a month.
