The NBA’s offseason is one of the league’s biggest attractions because of all the star movement year in and year out.
In a normal year, free agency would only be a few weeks away and we’d be prepping for the draft in a few days. But because of the coronavirus pandemic, this year has been anything but normal.
The NBA is still slowly trying to piece everything back together and finish out the 2019-20 season. There hasn’t been much done in the way of deciding how to move forward for the 2020-21 season.
The league made a bit of progress today, though, according to reports. The NBA has officially chosen a date for the draft, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The draft will take place on October 16 with an early entry deadline of August 17. Free agency will still begin on October 18 with the moratorium on deals set from October 19-23.
Source: NBA Draft will be on October 16, with early entry deadline on August 17.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 20, 2020
Free agency negotiations will start at 6 PM on October 18, per sources. (Not a minute sooner, or that would be tampering, of course) https://t.co/gFsfDA0BGf
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 20, 2020
This new date makes things a bit interesting on the college level.
First, it extends the window for college basketball players last season who were thinking about making the jump into the NBA draft once again. Originally, players had an April 26th deadline to decide if they wanted to enter into the NBA draft or return to school.
The NBA’s decision has extended that window until August 17. If a player changed their mind about entering the draft since then, they’d be able to reapply, according to a report from ESPN’s Jonathan Givony.
Further clarification: Any player who has already applied for the NBA Draft's original deadline of April 26th does not need to reapply. If a player applied and withdrew already, but now changed their mind, then they'd be able to reapply. . https://t.co/Sp24Y3hmi4
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) June 20, 2020
But on the flip side, the NBA’s August 17 date is a full two weeks after the NCAA’s August 3 deadline to withdraw from the draft. So any player who doesn’t make a decision by then would be ineligible to return to school.
Two weeks doesn’t sound like much, but in this situation that’s a lot. There’s still a lot in the air with the NCAA when it comes to coronavirus. They’re planning on playing games, but it’s clear those plans could change at the drop of a hat. And that has to be considered for these players.
These deadlines are still a couple of months away, so there’s plenty of time to think. But these players have some pretty big decisions to make. And they’ll be here before we know it.
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