After the NBA and its players’ union had separate discussions with their constituencies over the past few days, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports that the entities will hold separate calls on Thursday with the likely result being an agreement for the NBA to tip-off the 2020-21 season on Dec. 22.
The initial reporting of the NBA owners’ wishes to begin the season in December came as a surprise since Commissioner Adam Silver let it be known that the league’s priority was to have fans in its stands next season. If that meant that delaying the season’s beginning until sometime in February or March, the prevailing belief was that such a scenario was in play.
Things changed, however, as the country began experiencing a second wave of coronavirus infections. That, as well as the preference of the league’s television partners, led the league to conclude that its best interests would be served by beginning its season sooner rather than later.
From Wojnarowski:
NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the board of governors are awaiting a formal acceptance on the Dec. 22 date…
The league believes that a Dec. 22 start that includes Christmas Day games on television and allows for a 72-game schedule that finishes before the Summer Olympics in mid-July is worth between $500 million and $1 billion in short- and long-term revenues to the league and players, sources said.
Earlier this week, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported some of the details of the proposed calendar. Teams will be traveling but will have reductions in the number of miles and trips they take. The league will also limit back-to-back games for each team in order to make the task of playing 72 games in five months easier from a physical standpoint.
Other details of the 2020-21 season proposal are as follows;
- Teams will report for training camps on Dec. 1
- A 72-game regular season will tip-off on Dec. 22
- The playoffs are expected to begin somewhere around May 22 and conclude by July 22.
- The final two playoff seeds in each conference will be determined by a play-in tournament which will feature the seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th seeds.
With respect to the play-in tournament to determine the final two playoff seeds, the competition is expected to follow the same rules and format as the play-in game between the Portland Trail Blazers and Memphis Grizzlies we witnessed this past season. If the teams are within a certain number of games in the standings, the seventh and 10th seeds and eighth and ninth seeds will be crossmatched with the lower seed needing to defeat the higher seed two consecutive times in order to qualify for the postseason.
For the Heat and Lakers specifically, the thought of reporting for training camp in just a few weeks isn’t ideal considering the fact that it feels like the 2020 NBA Finals concluded just yesterday.
Nonetheless, for the betterment of the league as a whole, the 2020-21 campaign is expected to begin on Dec. 22, with that likely becoming official on Thursday.