Tag: 2020-21 season

Adam Silver: ‘Time is running out’ for NBA season to start in December

The NBA players union is debating whether a Dec. 22 start time is feasible or if pushing back to January is worth the expected loss in revenue.

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NBA commissioner Adam Silver told team executives that there is limited time to approve the new season if the league is going to be able to start on their ideal date of Dec. 22.

According to ESPN, Silver said “time is running out” for starting next season in 2020. If the NBA manages to start this early, officials believe the league can make between $500 million and $1 billion in revenue that would be unavailable if it started at a later date.

Under this scenario, there would be a 72-game season that would end in mid-May with Finals finishing around July 21, just ahead of the Summer Olympics.

The National Basketball Players Association is debating whether that start date, less than two months after the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA Finals, gives enough time for rest, offseason activity and training camps.

While the Lakers and Miami Heat played recently, 22 of the 30 teams last played before Sept. 3, which gives them well over three months off. Non-playoff teams haven’t played since at least mid-August.

A typical offseason has four full months between the Finals and the start of the new season, which amounts to half a year for non-playoff teams.

The union started conference calls this week with players from each team, according to The Athletic. Also under consideration is a start date around Jan. 18 for a season that would have 60 games and end in June with the Finals ending around Aug. 21.

Both proposals include a play-in tournament for the seventh through 10th seeds in both conferences.

League officials want to begin the season earlier to avoid competing with the Olympics and to take advantage of Christmas week which traditionally generates hundreds of millions in revenue, according to The Athletic.

The league and union hopes to keep the salary cap at $109 million and the luxury tax at $132 million.

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‘It’s revenue’: Michele Roberts on impasse between NBPA and NBA owners

It turns out that the financial ramifications from the coronavirus pandemic might be the underlying cause of contention.

At this point, there’s no reason to believe that the 2020-21 NBA season is in jeopardy, but it is fair to say that we don’t know when it’s going to begin.

The league’s owners want next season to begin on Dec. 22, while the players are in favor of delaying the season for an additional month and beginning on or around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which is January 18, 2021.

On Friday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski penned a report in which he laid out the owners’ case for wanting to start next season so soon after the 2019-20 season concluded. For the record, under the owners’ proposal, there will have been seven weeks from the time the 2020 Finals concluded to when players would report for training camp — less than half the usual duration.

The day after Wojnarowski’s report, Michele Roberts, the executive director of the NBA players union, spoke with veteran NBA reporter Chris Sheridan of BasketballNews.com about the current impasse and was rather frank about its underlying cause.

“…I hate to say it because it is so predictable – but it’s revenue, the revenue split. Our game has taken a huge hit because of the virus. The projections that we confidently had about the game’s growth, both this year and last year and next year and the year after that, those things are not going to happen… So we’ve got to figure out a way to live in an environment in which billions of dollars we expected to enjoy are no longer here.”

Immediately thereafter, Roberts seemed to express some confidence in the fact that the sides would be over to figure out when to begin next season and how many games to play once the underlying financial issues have been worked out.

The early reports suggest that the league would like a 72-game season while the players — who are concerned about when the season will begin — might lean toward a 50-game season beginning in January.

Still, Roberts didn’t seem too concerned.

“Everyone is confident the game will rebound, but until it rebounds, how do we deal with this revenue shortage?… it’s just very important that the parties find a way to deal with it where everyone walks away thinking, ‘I’ve taken my share of the pay, have you?’ If we get past that, then almost everything else we can agree on – how many games, when will we start, are we going to get there?

The 2020 NBA Draft is scheduled for Nov. 18. The league’s incoming class of rookies will be entering an interesting situation, to say the least.

Even more than usual, Roberts is carrying a lot on her capable shoulders.

NBA and players union at impasse over start date of 2020-21 season

A significant gulf exists between the NBA’s owners and its players with respect to when the 2020-21 season should begin.

On Friday, the NBA and the NBA players union mutually agreed to a fourth extension of the right afforded to either side to terminate the collective bargaining agreement.

And as the clock ticks toward that Nov. 6 deadline, the two sides are at an impasse with respect to when the 2020-21 season will tip-off.

The league’s owners have recently communicated their desire to begin the 2020-21 season on Dec. 22, with teams convening for training camp on Dec. 1. With the NBA Finals concluding on Oct. 11, it would be a mere seven weeks between. That’s less than half the time under normal scenarios.

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the desire of the owners to begin next season so much sooner than initially predicted is for want of financial considerations.

Starting the season later than the Dec. 22 proposal could put the NBA in the difficult predicament of once again competing with Major League Baseball, the NFL and, even worse, the Tokyo Olympics, which are set to begin on July 23, 2021.

In all, the owners estimate that the January start could cost them up to $1 billion in losses, not including the estimated 10% revenue loss that the coronavirus pandemic caused the league to sustain for the 2019-20 season.

The league’s players, however, are said to not be too keen on having to report for next season so soon. The unofficial counterproposal from the players is said to be to begin the season at or around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Jan. 18, 2021.

If the players get their way, however, the early report states that teams would only play 50 games in a truncated season, which would result in the players losing nearly 40% of their salaries for next season. On the other hand, the owners’ proposal would call for another 72-game season, would mitigate the losses significantly.

…[T]he NBA fears delaying the start of the 2020-21 season until January could cost the league an additional $500 million to $1 billion in revenue losses next season and beyond, sources said…

A mid-January start around Martin Luther King Day would take the league past the July Summer Olympics and into the summer months, when the league fears television ratings would plummet. The NBA is estimating significant financial turmoil if the league has to compete with the Summer Olympics for television ratings in July.

In other words, there’s a dilemma.

With respect to the players, many of them dream of competing in the Olympics. There are also obvious commercial opportunities that come with that, as well. If the timeline of the season and postseason is pushed back even a few weeks — much less a month — it would jeopardize the ability of players on the teams competing in the Finals to prepare for the Olympics.

This story, obviously, will continue to develop.

Report: Many NBA players would prefer 2020-21 season begin on MLK Day

The NBA’s owners want the 2020-21 season to begin on Dec. 22, but many of the league’s players aren’t enthusiastic about the idea.

The NBA and its players union have been having conversations about the league’s business and when the 2020-21 season will begin. The league’s owners prefer beginning next season on Dec. 22, while the players, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, are favoring tipping off next season on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day — January 18, 2021.

That there is some disagreement between the sides shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. As a class, the players are the product, and they are the ones that have to actually play the games. In the not-so-distant past, it was thought that the league would pursue a normal offseason schedule, which would have had the 2020-21 season beginning sometime after February, however, in recent days, those sympathies have changed, as the league’s owners are reportedly conceding that next season will likely be truncated anyway and largely played without fans.

Officially, the league’s proposal to its players, as reported by The Athletic, has the season beginning on Dec. 22 with players reporting for training camp on Dec. 1. Each team would play a truncated schedule of 72 games with a play-in tournament to determine the final playoff seed, similar to what transpired in Orlando.

The thought behind the extremely shortened offseason is to have the 2020-21 campaign end in July in time for the Olympics. The hope is that by the time the 2021-22 season tips off that the coronavirus pandemic would be under control and that life would be close to normal.

Understandably, however, the players don’t seem so keen on the relatively short offseason. In addition to Haynes’ report, NBPA executive director Michele Roberts spoke with The Athletic and said enough to raise some serious doubt as to whether the players would agree to reconvene in time for a Dec. 22 tip-off.

“Given all that has to be resolved between now and a Dec. 22 date, factoring that there will be financial risks by a later start date, it defies common sense that it can all be done in time… Our players deserve the right to have some runway so that they can plan for a start that soon. The overwhelming response from the players that I have received to this proposal has been negative.”

As it stands, the league and the players union will meet on Friday to make some important decisions about the collective bargaining agreement and whether either side will terminate it, which isn’t considered likely.

 

NBA hoping to start 2020-21 season by December 22nd, end by Olympics

The NBA is hoping to start the 2020-21 season a little before Christmas, considerably earlier than projections for late January being discussed previously.

The NBA offseason might ending sooner than many of us expected.

For the basketball fans among us, this is an definitively positive development; multiple sources report that the Board of Governors meeting held today by the league has created a consensus to start as close to Christmas as can be accomplished safely.

The Athletic’s Shams Charania shares the season is also planned to end before the July 23rd start date projected for the Tokyo Olympics, allowing players to participate and pushing the schedule of the season back towards its usual range.

Charania relates the NBA will plan for a 72-game schedule beginning on December 22nd, with a potential plan to reduced travel via scheduling multiple games per trip between teams.

The play-in tournament model used for determining eighth seeds in the Disney bubble will likely be used as well.

While the fewer games might otherwise be helpful for older players like Philadelphia 76ers big man Al Horford, it’s not improbable the frequency those games will negate any benefit of having fewer games to play.

Numerous details still need to be addressed regarding the coming season, and much will likely change between now and the end of December.

For now, we are starting to see the first real shape of the 2020-21 season come into focus.

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Report: 2020-2021 NBA season may begin ‘sooner rather than later’

We could end up seeing pro basketball much sooner than anyone anticipated.

Monday brought forth some good news for NBA fans who are hoping to see pro basketball played again sooner rather than later.

The question as to when the 2020-21 NBA season would begin has been an oft-discussed topic since the league suspended play back in March. The Olympics being scheduled to commence on July 23, 2021 further complicates matters, as NBA players have been instrumental in the growth of the game and, in most instances, are one of international sports’ highlights.

If the 2020-21 season began later than usual — a certainty at this point — then it is possible that the league could be in the middle of its playoffs when the Tokyo games begin.

That’s one consideration, but according to Bill Simmons of The Ringer, not the only one. According to Simmons, the NBA also doesn’t want to have to compete for NFL kickoff in September or be relying on Americans to watch its playoffs in August when most people are presumably spending time on summer activities.

Simmons addressed these topics on The Bill Simmons Podcast, and his commentary was transcribed by RealGM.com.

“There’s a lot of indication that the NBA might start a lot sooner than anybody thought,” said Bill Simmons. “I think the thinking is, I mean Christmas would be the ideal, but I don’t think they could pull it together that fast. But if you do it by Martin Luther King weekend range. Somewhere between Christmas and Martin Luther King weekend.

“The thinking is this next season is screwed now. Because fans aren’t going to be back until god only knows? April? May? Who knows? But they have to preserve the season after. The later they wait to start this season, the more it [expletive] with the next season.

Simmons makes a good point. If the 2020-21 NBA season begins in March, it would be difficult to imagine a scenario where the regular season ends before July, and that’s being quite optimistic. Under normal circumstances, the NBA would begin its season in mid-to-late October, with its regular season ending in mid-April — that’s about six months. The playoffs then begin with the NBA Finals being scheduled to conclude a potential seventh game somewhere in mid-to-late June. That’s about eight months total, and eight months from March brings us to November. Even if the league managed to condense the schedule, though, it’s difficult to imagine ending the season before September.

That would essentially put the NBA in a predicament where it’s changing its entire calendar in a way that didn’t appear to benefit it this past summer. So, according to Simmons, the smart thing to do might be to begin the 2020-21 season earlier enough to ensure that it ends on schedule, even if it means less fans. The major upside to that is that the 2021-22 season would, in theory, be able to revert to the NBA’s normal calendar. It makes sense.

“I know they have talks with the networks this week… But you bite the bullet, you start it sooner than later. You go like 72 games, 70 games, something like that. Get rid of the All-Star break…

“The thing that they learned is nobody watches television in August. Regardless of whether there’s a pandemic or not… You know what really worked? Having the Finals in June and then the offseason in July and you own those two months. They want to get back to that, or some version of that. To do that, you have to start the next season sooner than later.”

With the country seemingly showing signs of the “second wave” of COVID-19 infections that many have been warning of for several months, there’s no telling when we might get back to a place where we’re comfortable, as a society, with 20,000 people convening in a closed arena for a sporting event.

It stands to reason that the NBA is considering its options and, perhaps, slowly realizing that waiting indefinitely for fans to be able to return to arenas might not be in its long-term interests.

Do the Florida Gators have Final Four potential in 2020-21?

UF has a talented group on its men’s basketball squad but was a disappointment last season. Can they make the Final Four this year?

“This year is going to be the year” is starting to become a theme for Florida basketball.

Last season, the Gators began as a top-10 team before struggles in the non-conference schedule quickly dropped them out of the top 25. UF was a marginal NCAA Tournament team by the end of the season, despite preseason projections having them making a deep run.

Florida’s roster is once again loaded with talent in 2020-21, though, and coach Mike White has never assembled a roster this experienced in Gainesville.

The Athletic’s Dana O’Neil is optimistic about the state of the Gators program. Asked by a reader if Florida has the potential to be a Final Four team, here’s her response.

Dana, What are your thoughts on the Florida Gators? How far do they go in the tourney? — Robin C.

There is no reason the Gators can’t go far. None. That roster is absolutely loaded — Keyontae Johnson, Scottie Lewis, Noah Locke, plus transfers Tyree Appleby and Anthony Duruji — and better yet, they are old. That’s the game-changer. Anyone who reads my mailbag regularly knows I’m a big believer in old guys win in March.

That’s the difference, I think, between last year’s crash and burn disappointment and this year’s legit possibility. Florida always was talented, but college basketball has proven time and time again that talent doesn’t always win games. You have to know how to win and play together and handle expectation and play smart.

These guys aren’t going to get their heads turned by people hyping them up, not after it all went sideways. They understand the difference between high school rankings and reality. I expect a far more mature approach, and this year especially, that’s going to pay huge dividends.

To answer your question succinctly: Florida is good enough to go to the Final Four.

If the Gators are going to be playing deep into March, they will need to play with more chemistry, especially on offense, than they have in past seasons under White. Whether or not that happens could be make-or-break for his future in Gainesville.

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Adam Silver admits 2020-21 NBA season will not begin before January

Once the 2019-20 season concludes, the NBA’s players will have to brace for another indefinite offseason of sorts.

Heading into the final week of September, the Eastern and Western Conference Finals are underway, with the Lakers and Heat leading their respective series against the Nuggets and Celtics, 2-1.

Yes, the NBA Playoffs are in full effect as the calendar prepares to turn to October, which puts the league in unchartered territory.

Apparently, according to Commissioner Adam Silver, the days of the league holding out hope of beginning the 2020-21 season before the New Year are long gone.

Initially, that was the reported goal for the NBA, with one early timeline having Game 7 (if necessary) of the NBA Finals scheduled for Oct. 12, the 2020 NBA Draft set for Oct. 16 and free agency set to begin on Oct. 18. The league was then hoping to begin the 2020-21 season somewhere within a month after the 2020 NBA Champion was crowned, but that timeline was obviously a bit too optimistic.

Since then, the league has formally pushed the 2020 NBA Draft to Nov. 18 and acknowledged that the 2020-21 season would have to be delayed.

On Tuesday, for the first time, we heard Silver acknowledge what had long been known — the league will not return to play until 2021.

The priority, it’s been said, is finding a way to safely get fans back into arenas next season. Delaying the beginning of the season until sometime after January improves the potential of COVID-19 — either by way of a vaccine becoming widely available or by a slowing of spread — being a bit more under control than it currently is.

According to CNN, the United States has just recently surpassed 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, with many experts fearing that a “second wave” of the virus may be ahead in the fall months.

The Commissioner made the admission during an appearance on CNN in which he was interviewed by Bob Costas. In pertinent part, Silver says that the 2020-21 season would begin in January as his “best guess,” but that the league is still planning for a full 82-game regular season.

Depending on when exactly the season begins, a late start would almost certainly impact the NBA’s ability to have its players compete in the Tokyo Olympics, which are scheduled to begin on July 21.

Silver acknowledged that could also be an issue.

With the 2019-20 season still being contested, it’s a bit early to become overly fixated with next season. However, with all but four teams already eliminated and many players facing free agency, these questions are already being asked.

Unfortunately, at this point, there aren’t many answers to go around, but Silver did at least provide one important fact on Tuesday. NBA basketball will be gone for several months once the 2019-20 champion is crowned.

Report: Start of next season will be postponed further; could be in 2021

The NBA plans to push back the starting date of the 2020-21 season to no earlier than Christmas Day, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

The 2020-21 NBA season may simply become the 2021 NBA season.

A day after ESPN reported that draft day may be pushed back to November, The Athletic’s Shams Charania tweeted that the league is planning to start the NBA season no earlier than Christmas Day.

Charania said that both the season start date and the day of the draft is fluid, meaning it could start later.

A big reason why the NBA is pushing back the season, according to an ESPN report last month, is that they would like to get fans in the stadium for as many games as possible to help boost revenue.

The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor quote-tweeted Charania with a similar message, but warned the league may wait even longer before beginning next season.

The current tentative opening game of the 2020-21 season is Dec. 1, but with these new reports, that will not be the case.

ESPN reported that 40% of league revenue comes from game-day sales. Following a season in which finances are down due to the coronavirus and strained relations with China, there is importance in generating as much income as possible.

Additionally, the further back offseason activities are pushed, the further back the start of the season needs to be.

If the draft is not until Nov. 18, as Charania reported, and free agency starts shortly after, teams will need time to gel and game plan for their new rosters.

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Report: NBA to push back draft date, likely delay start of 2020-21 season

The NBA will push back the date of the 2020 draft and will likely move other key dates including the start of free agency and the start of the season back in accordance.

Hopefuls for the 2020 NBA Draft will have to wait a little bit longer before hearing their name called.

The NBA and National Basketball Players Association have agreed to push back the date of the draft, and with it will likely also be the postponement of key dates of the 2020-21 season including the first game, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

The draft had been scheduled for Oct. 16. Charania reported that the draft is still expected to be held in October.

As that day moves back, free agency too will almost certainly be delayed from the proposed start date of Oct. 18.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have the No. 25 pick in the draft.

Free agency will be notable not just for those the Thunder may have interest in signing, but in players they might lose. Power forward Danilo Gallinari will be one of the more sought-after free agents of this offseason.

The beginning of next season will likely be pushed back as well. The league was targeting Dec. 1 as its start date.

ESPN reported in August that the NBA hopes delaying the start of the season will allow fans to be at more games. Game-night income makes up 40% of the league’s revenue, according to ESPN. Getting fans into more games would somewhat assuage financial woes caused by the coronavirus and relations with China.