Why is 16 teams/400 players the magic # that would appease your need for safety?
My need? Weird.
16 teams/400 people is still a fairly large number.
Hopefully they could figure out how to make that reasonably safe.
16 teams allows you to complete a full slate of playoffs.
And again series are safer than lots of mixed games.
And there's my other idea of having teams currently ranked from 13-28 play-in for the final 4 playoff spots. A 16 team tourney in place of the rest of the reg season, in which 4 teams get playoff spots. 1st round can be best of 3, best of 5 after that.
Again just 16/400, only series, etc.
Take a week (quarantine) break and then start the 16 team playoffs.
Obviously if they don't feel that 16/400 (my made up number of total people) is not safe enough and not viable, then they need to look into 12 or 8 teams. Below 8 seems unlikely/disappointing.
I think the basic idea for now is to have playoffs that are as close to normal as possible. So I'd either go right to playoffs now as is. Or go with my 16 teams play-in in lieu of the reg season.