Playoffs begin August 17. Reason for continuing the regular season was basically because there were a 5 teams in the West who were outside the playoffs and had a realistic shot of making the playoffs, and the league wanted to give them enough games to have an honest shot of making it (and because one of those teams just out of the playoffs has ratings-juggernaut Zion Williamson, who the NBA would really love to see make the playoffs... and whose team just happened to get the easiest schedule of any team in the restart).
Because there's no meaningful home-court advantage, the top teams don't care a lot about the seeding implications, but it does give the teams a bit of a chance to manage minutes and ramp players up rather than just having them go from scrimmage basketball straight to playoff basketball.
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