NBA’s restart focuses initially on setting playoff matchups

The deals are done. The NBA is coming back. The season will resume July 30 at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports complex in Florida.

The league announced its “seeding games” — the eight regular-season games to determine playoffs seeding — on Friday.

Here are some things to know about the season’s restart:

Living with the coronavirus threat: Sixteen NBA players have tested positive for the coronavirus.

The league conducted 302 tests this past week with 5.298% positive. The league has not released test results for coaches or support staff members who were also tested at the start of the week.

Still, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts and NBPA president Chris Paul expressed varying levels of optimism Friday about the planned season reboot.

Silver said the NBA wouldn’t halt games if a star player like LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard or Giannis Antetokounmpo were to contract the virus before a key game or series.

”We haven’t worked through every scenario, but the notion would be that if we had a single player test positive, frankly, whether that player was an All-Star or a journeyman, that player would then go into quarantine,” Silver said. “That team would be down a man, and we would treat that positive test as we would an injury during the season, so we would not delay the continuation of the playoffs.

“Of course, if we were to have significant spread of coronavirus through our community, that ultimately might lead us to stopping.”

According to the NBA health and safety protocols, players who test positive inside the Orlando campus, the so-called “NBA bubble,” must immediately enter isolation housing. Assuming the positive test is confirmed, the player will remain in...