The NBA’s return to play is now official, with the Board of Governors voting today to approve a 22-team format in Orlando, Florida to begin late next month:

Shams Charania reported that Portland was the lone team to vote against the proposal. The Blazers are currently 3.5 games behind Memphis in the west and need to make up some ground to sneak into the eight seed or force a play-in game.

Additionally, the draft is scheduled for mid-October while the lottery will take place in August. We’ll get the full details soon, and learn about the specific arrangements and rule adjustments (if any) to make up for the lack of postseason home court advantage.

Until then, here are five thoughts on the Sixers and where they stand:

1. The preferable path

With eight regular season games preceding the playoffs, there’s time to jockey for seeding. Right now Philly is the six seed, tied with Indy at 39-26 and two games back of Miami.

Looking down the Eastern Conference top five, I’d rank the preferable opponents this way:

  1. Boston
  2. Indiana
  3. Miami
  4. Toronto
  5. Milwaukee

The Sixers won the Boston regular season series 3-1. They were down 2-1 to Indy, Toronto, and Milwaukee, and lost 3-1 to Miami.

Matchup-wise, they’re better suited to open in a 3/6 game against the Celtics, but they did crush the Heat at home before losing a close one on the road in overtime. Gut instinct, I just think playing Boston and Toronto is the preferable path instead of going Miami/Milwaukee, assuming the Sixers can get out of the first round.

2. Neutral court games

At 29-2, the Sixers will finish the wonky season with the NBA’s best home record.

On the road, they were 10-24, which is the worst mark among the 16 teams currently in playoff position.

How does this play out? Will they stink on a neutral floor? Or does it equate to a wash, since they won’t be traveling and won’t be playing in front of opposing fans? It’s intriguing to think about, and we’ll have no clue how this affects their performances until the games actually resume.

Essentially we’re playing these games in a vacuum, so we’ll get a more organic understanding of just how good they are on the court with the external factors removed.

3. Starting lineup?

When play was postponed, the Sixers did not have Ben Simmons available and moved Shake Milton into the starting lineup as primary ball handler alongside Josh Richardson, Tobias Harris, Al Horford, and Joel Embiid. Previously, Horford had been removed from the starting lineup in favor of Glenn Robinson III, plus a game of Furkan Korkmaz, while Harris moved down to power forward.

We were told by Elton Brand and Brett Brown that Simmons was doing well in his back injury rehab, and he’ll have two more months to bring himself back to 100%, so Brown will have to decide whether he keeps Milton in the starting five or goes with the original five and tries to make it work again with Horford at power forward.

The Sixers are a -26 in 223 minutes of Milton and Simmons sharing the floor together, but I don’t know if any numbers really matter since we’re headed into uncharted territory here. Plus, Milton was playing incredibly confident basketball heading into the break, so I wouldn’t rule out an off-ball Shake + PG Simmons combination in the future.

4. The level of competitiveness

When other sports returned without fans, did you sense a lack of ‘juice’ or enthusiasm? I didn’t see it in UFC, but in the Bundesliga it felt a bit flat to me, the energy level of the players.

I asked Elton Brand about this during the conference call he did a few weeks back, and this is what he had to say:

“It’s interesting, because I’ve seen practices that are brutal. You just go at it and bang, foul, sweat and blood, and you know, you compete. So I think the competitive juices (are there), once things are really on the line, whether that’s the regular season, whether that’s playoffs and especially when you get to the championship, I think regardless if there’s fans, we’re going to compete. We’re going to be ready to compete. Even pick up (games) in the summer, I’ve seen guys foul players on our own team and say ‘Why don’t you foul our opponent like that?’ I think we’ll be prepared and we can get the juices flowing.”

Brett Brown was bummed out about the idea of playing without fans, but also said he does not think that will water down the level of competitiveness:

5. Turnovers

Not sure how many people are aware of this, but when play stopped on March 12th, the Sixers were a top 10 turnover team. That’s wild considering how poorly Brown’s teams have done in this category over the years, but see for yourself:

Some of that is due to a slower, more plodding offense, but Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid’s individual per-36 numbers are both improved this year, down to career lows of 3.6 and 3.7, respectively.

For what it’s worth, you’d have to go all the way back to Doug Collins’ final season for the last time the Sixers finished as a top ten turnover team. They only coughed the ball up 13 times on average en route to a 34-48 record and 9th place finish.

The NBA is back.

Let’s goooooooooooooooooo