Hawks issue statement after being excluded from NBA’s resumption plan

On Thursday the NBA board of governors voted to approve a 22-team format to restart the 2019-20 season July 31 in Orlando, Florida, the league announced.

The 22 returning teams would be the 16 teams (eight per conference) in current playoff positions and the six teams that are currently six games or fewer behind the eighth seed in their respective conferences.

The NBA Board of Governors today approved a competitive format to restart the 2019-20 season with 22 teams returning to play and a tentative start date of Friday, July 31.

Full release: https://t.co/NYm89lLkX2

— NBA (@NBA) June 4, 2020

Unfortunately the Hawks are apart of the eight teams that will not be heading to Orlando. Consequently, their 2019-20 has come to an end.

The Atlanta Hawks released a dual statement from president of basketball operations Travis Schlenk and head coach Lloyd Pierce.

A message to our fans

🖥: https://t.co/ISS6PwMdqf#TrueToAtlanta pic.twitter.com/Ly3E5NAJSd

— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) June 5, 2020

Yesterday the NBA announced a format to restart the 2019-20 season with 22 teams participating. This certainly wasn’t how we hoped our season would come to an end, and it’s fair to say that we are disappointed that our young team will not be allowed to gain more valuable time playing together by being included in the restart of the season. With that said, we understand and respect the countless difficult factors that entered into this decision for the league, and we realize that there are much more important things taking place in our community right now that deserve our attention.

 

We would like to recognize and thank our players for their dedication, connectedness and patience during this unprecedented time. We saw promising growth during the season and significant improvement individually and collectively from the start of the campaign through March 11. Since that time, our players, with the support of our coaching and athletic training staffs, have been diligent and professional in staying prepared, in the hopes of having the opportunity to restart their season and finish strong.

 

We remain engaged in finding ways for our team to compete and continue the important growth and development that was a core focus for our team this season.