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The NBA season officially restarts on Thursday, July 30 with a doubleheader featuring the Utah Jazz vs. New Orleans Pelicans and Los Angeles Clippers vs. Los Angeles Lakers. Of course, that excitement has led sports fans across the country to renew their fandom ahead of the league’s restart at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida.
A new infographic compiled data to show which team each state is rooting for.
The basketball team at SportsInsider.com compiled Twitter mentions and geotagged data searching tweets and hashtags about the NBA Finals, NBA Championship, NBA Champions, 2020 NBA Finals, etc. and tracking the team most associated with those terms in each state. Over 200,000 tweets were tracked.
Predictably, the Lakers led the way with half of the states picking LeBron and company to win the championship.
The Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics also had strong support.
A full breakdown can be seen below:
Provided by SportsInsider.com- Lakers – 25 states
- Bucks – 7 states
- Celtics – 6 states
- 76ers – 3 states
- Clippers – 2 states
- Rockets – 1 state
- Thunder – 1 state
- Heat – 1 state
- Raptors – 1 state
- Nuggets – 1 state
- Pacers – 1 state
- Jazz – 1 state
The league will be playing a 22-team format that will include 8 regular-season games and the postseason. The 8 games would be played in order to determine the playoff seeding. Games are scheduled to take place from July 30 through October 12.
The top eight teams in the Eastern Conference — Milwaukee Bucks, Toronto Raptors, Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, Indiana Pacers, Philadelphia 76ers, Brooklyn Nets, and Orlando Magic — would join the Western Conference’s top 8 teams — Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, Denver Nuggets, Utah Jazz, Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks, and Memphis Grizzlies — would make up 16 of the 22 teams. Joining the current 16 playoff teams would be the New Orleans Pelicans, Portland Trailblazers, Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs, and Washington Wizards.
Who is ready to have some fun?
