What if Zion Williamson misses games in the NBA restart?

Star New Orleans Pelicans rookie Zion Williamson has left the NBA bubble due to a family medical matter, with plans to return and rejoin his team at a later date.

It's unclear for now if Williamson will miss any games. The Pelicans face the Utah Jazz in the first of the NBA seeding games on July 30, starting off 3.5 games back of the Memphis Grizzlies for the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference.

How will the coronavirus testing and quarantine protocol work when Williamson makes his planned return to Orlando? And what impact could his absence have on the NBA playoff race if he doesn't return for the beginning of the restart?

NBA insiders Bobby Marks and Kevin Pelton break down the implications.

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How Williamson's return will work

By leaving the Walt Disney World Resort, Williamson now enters into a new protocol designed for exit and reentry. The NBA established this protocol in the health and safety guidelines issued to teams and explained here. Williamson's exit is considered "excused," which will make the process quicker for him to return to action.

Upon his original arrival, Williamson went through the initial 48-hour quarantine phase and was tested daily for the coronavirus.

If Williamson continues to be tested daily while he is away, and the test results are negative, then he will go into a four-day quarantine upon his return in Orlando. If he isn't tested while he is away, the quarantine period upon re-arrival will be a minimum of 10 days. If Williamson had left on his own without prior approval from the NBA and the Pelicans, the quarantine period would have been a minimum of 10 days and maximum of 14.

Because the Pelicans play on July 30, Williamson would need to return to the Orlando campus by July 26 to be eligible to play in the opening game. But even if Williamson does return by July 26, he will have missed about two weeks of practice and conditioning by the time the season restarts.

There are no salary implications because the Williamson absence is excused based on extenuating circumstances. -- Marks

Potential impact on the playoff race

Zion's dominant offensive play in the 19 games he did play this season is a key factor in the Pelicans projecting as the most likely team to force a play-in matchup in my simulations projecting the seeding games. Naturally, any time he potentially misses will hurt New Orleans' chances.

In particular, the Pelicans would surely want Zion back in time for their third game against the Grizzlies, who are currently in eighth. To have any chance of catching Memphis and getting the coveted eighth spot entering the play-in matchup, which happened in 16% of my simulations, New Orleans needs that head-to-head win.

The meeting with the Grizzlies kicks off a stretch where four of five Pelicans games are against other teams in the mix for the play-in matchup -- continuing with back-to-back games against the Sacramento Kings, who are tied with New Orleans in the standings, plus a matchup against the San Antonio Spurs.

Looming especially large are those two matchups against the Kings, who could also be without a key young player, De'Aaron Fox, after he sprained his left ankle in practice on Wednesday. The outcome of those two Pelicans-Kings games will also determine the head-to-head tiebreaker should the two teams finish with identical records in the seeding games. The Pelicans won the first head-to-head meeting, but Sacramento could still claim the season series by winning both games in Orlando.

As a result, the Kings probably stand to benefit the most if Williamson isn't back for at least the first week of seeding games, even more so than the Portland Trail Blazers -- currently ninth in the West by a fraction over New Orleans and Sacramento.

At the same time, we shouldn't mark Pelicans games down as automatic L's if Zion is unable to play. They had already begun to turn around their season before Williamson's debut in late January, winning 10 of their previous 14 games, highlighted by a win at Memphis on MLK Day.

A big factor in New Orleans' recovery was the presence of starting center Derrick Favors, who missed 20 of the season's first 44 games due to injury and the death of his mother. The Pelicans went 6-14 in the games Favors missed and rated 5.6 points per 100 possessions worse than an average team, adjusting for opponent and location. With Favors active, New Orleans went 12-13 and rated 2.7 points per 100 possessions better than an average team prior to Williamson's return -- similar to the team's performance with Zion (10-9, 3.0 points per 100 possessions better than average).

My projections based on the multiyear version of ESPN's real plus-minus (RPM) still show the Pelicans as the best of the contenders for ninth in the West without Williamson in the lineup, and either way they'll benefit from the easiest schedule for any team in the seeding games.

So I think they would be the favorites to finish ninth and force a play-in matchup so long as their other rotation players remain healthy. Still, their path to the playoffs looks a lot more reasonable if Zion is able to return in the next 10 days. -- Pelton