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The NBA board of governors is reportedly meeting on Friday to discuss a number of potential changes to the 2020-21 season, including starting as soon as Christmas Day, according to Brian Windhorst and Zach Lowe of ESPN.
The possible changes come as some owners would like to begin the 2020-21 season as quickly as possible and potentially play fewer than 82 games without fans present in all arenas. The potential changes stem from owners wanting to take advantage of the Christmas Day lineup, which serves as the league’s top programming day of the season.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said last month that the 2020-21 season would likely not start on Christmas Day and would happen sometime in January. Some teams, according to the report, are unsure if a Christmas Day start would work while others are pushing to begin the season on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“My best guess is that [the next season] won’t start until 2021,” Silver said on Sept. 22. “We said, a week ago or so, that the earliest we would start is Christmas of this year but the more I’m learning, even listening to Dr. Fauci, I continue to believe that we’re going to be better off getting into January.”
The agreed-upon date by the board of governors would also need to be approved by the National Basketball Players Association as the two sides have been in constant communication since the NBA Finals concluded. The league and the players also need to finalize salary cap information and other related items.
The scheduling and financial items could be in place by Oct. 30, which would mark roughly eight weeks until Christmas Day. Silver has said in the past that the league wanted to give teams and players an eight-week notice before the start of next season.
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