The NBA has managed to navigate returning to play during the spread of COVID-19 better than anyone could have hoped. Their temporary bubble in Orlando has worked as planned and has yet to produce any delays or a single positive test for coronavirus.
However, the pandemic has already altered the NBA’s calendar going into next season. The NBA draft lottery was just held last week and the draft and free agency period had both been pushed back to October. But according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, free agency and the draft may continue to be pushed back even further. The current NBA season is expected to conclude in early October.
The NBA is moving toward pushing back this year’s draft, scheduled for Oct. 16, along with the Oct. 18 start of free agency, partly because of a strong likelihood that the tentative opening of the 2020-21 season will be delayed from Dec. 1, sources told ESPN.
Not only would the draft and free agency be delayed, but it also appears the start of next season could be pushed back as well. Wojnarowski adds that there’s still optimism about the 2020-21 NBA season beginning sometime in December or January.
On Friday’s board of governors call with the league office, discussions on starting dates for next season ranged from December to March, sources said. There’s still a consensus hope the season can begin sometime in late December or January, sources told ESPN.
Of course, the way NBA teams approach free agency and the draft has already been altered as clubs are forced to adjust on the fly to the new normal. Hopefully the NBA is able to kick off next season within the 2020 calendar years but if not, expect the NBA to return sometime in early 2021.
