After about a month of negotiating, on top of whatever conversations about next season were had inside the NBA bubble, the NBA and the NBPA have finally announced their agreement to start the 2020-21 season on Dec. 22, with training camps starting on Dec. 1 and free agency in less than two weeks on Nov. 20. The announcement also delivered some of the long-awaited details of adjustments to the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which were needed after the league’s drop in revenue due to the pandemic.
The NBA agreed to keep the salary cap at $109.140 million and the Tax Level will be $132.627 million. The league also agreed to have tax payments be tied to the league’s revenue, allowing teams not to have to take as big of a hit financially if they are over the tax line. This is major for teams like Golden State, Brooklyn, and also potentially the Lakers, who have a good number of free-agent signings they need to execute. The league and the players also agreed to keep this type of arrangement through the rest of the CBA, so they won’t have to come back to the bargaining table again just to start the following season, no matter how much revenue is lost due to a lack of fans due to the coronavirus.
For LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, this is not ideal and LeBron has voiced that perspective. But just as it was true in the Orlando Bubble, sacrifice is the name of the game here. There were eight teams who watched the bubble from home and several others get sent home after their first two weeks of seeding games.
With the draft set for Nov. 18 and free agency on Nov. 20, the NBA is going to have a jampacked month of offseason action. Not even after the 2011 lockout did the league have to move this fast with their business of both drafting and free agency in the run-up to training camp. Free agents will be agreeing to deals and moving to new cities almost the next day.
None of this is normal and it’s totally understandable if it feels too much for the Lakers, Heat, Nuggets, or Celtics, who were the last teams standing in late September. But with all of that firmly in the picture, the NBA is back. And the other 26 teams likely won’t feel any sympathy towards them either.
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