The Portland Trail Blazers were the single NBA franchise to vote against the league’s 22-team proposal to resume play in Orlando this summer, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic.
Sources: Portland was the lone team that voted against the 22-team format. https://t.co/WxxADXEkNb
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 4, 2020
The vote needed three-fourths of NBA owners to support the plan in order for it to pass, and was widely expected to pass over the past several days. What came as more of a surprise is that the plan had just one detractor, and that it was Portland, a team that is actually included in the 22-team format.
This structure would include 13 teams from the Western Conference and nine from the Eastern Conference, all of whom are within six games of the playoffs. Portland is currently the ninth seed out west, 3.5 games behind Memphis. Under the proposed rules, if the Trail Blazers remained in the nine-spot within four games of the Grizzlies, they would be in position to compete in a play-in series to get into the playoffs.
However, Damian Lillard infamously said in recent weeks that he would not be interested in traveling to Orlando for the bubble if it were not worth the risk and energy on Portland’s part. Perhaps Lillard and his teammates are not satisfied with the league’s plan, or maybe it’s something entirely separate that the organization takes issue with.
Portland was fifth in attendance this year and an annual playoff mainstay, so it doesn’t seem like this vote would be financially motivated. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the issue Portland had was that they felt there were better formats out there that addressed other issues better, including using record in Orlando to impact lottery odds.
Sources: Blazers are eager to resume season, but chose to vote “No” because franchise believed there were more competitive and innovative formats on table — including those that addressed 2020 NBA Draft lottery odds based on regular-season game results in Orlando.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 4, 2020
Yahoo’s Chris Haynes reports they wanted the 20-team format, not 22 teams, as it would’ve given them a better chance of making it back into the playoffs.
Yahoo Sources: Portland preferred a 20-team return-to-play format, thus one of the reasons why they voted no to the 22-team format.
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) June 4, 2020
Source: https://uproxx.com/dimemag/portland-trail-blazers-vote-against-nba-proposal/