Adam Silver Says Next NBA Season May Not Start Until 2021

• Adam Silver says 2020-21 NBA season may not start until January
• 2020-21 season was put on hiatus for four months earlier this year due to health reason
• The current season will not end until mid-October

Needless to say, the 2019-20 NBA season has been a weird one. It’s hard to believe, but the season won’t actually come to a close until about a full year has passed since it began. Opening night was way back on October 22 of last year, and Game 7 of the NBA Finals is currently scheduled for October 13 of this year. Nobody could have possibly known how many twists and turns the world would take back then, but the league has done an impressive job of making sure the season gets played in full.

The league endured a four-month hiatus from March until late-July as a result of the coronavirus pandemic earlier this year. The NBA became the first American pro sports league to cease operations as the virus spread through the United States, but everyone else followed suit shortly thereafter. Following months of uncertainty, the league ultimately decided to invite 22 of the 30 teams to the Disney World property in Orlando to play out the rest of the schedule in a “bubble” environment.

While games at neutral venues without fans have made for a different experience, the quality of play itself hasn’t suffered. However, the long break earlier this season will force the league to begin its upcoming 2020-21 campaign later than expected.

2020-21 Season Pushed Back?

NBA commissioner Adam Silver had originally scheduled an early-December start date for the new season, but that plan received some pushback from the NBA Players Association. The players said that the relatively short break wouldn’t allow for enough time off for the teams making deep playoff runs. So, the league relented, and no firm date has been set as of yet.

There has been some talk about starting the season around Christmas, but on Tuesday Silver said that the season is more likely to get underway after the calendar flips to 2021.

Adam Silver told CNN a few minutes ago that he does not anticipate the 2020-21 season beginning until at least January (so is it really a 2020-21 season?) and said the league wants 82 games, with playoffs.

At what point do they just say NBA players aren’t going to the Olympics?

— Tim Reynolds (@ByTimReynolds) September 22, 2020

In an interview with CNN, Silver said his “best guess” is that the league will begin a usual 82-game schedule early next year. However, the ongoing threat of the pandemic means the league will likely continue to hold games without fans for the foreseeable future.

Silver said that he had hoped to get the season started around Christmas, but as a result of the virus, the NBA will “be better off getting into January.” Silver said that the plan is for every team to play an 82-game regular-season schedule, and that “the goal would be to play games in home arenas in front of fans.”

Large gatherings are still banned in major cities across the US, though, and the NBA certainly wouldn’t be a league to make a reckless plan that puts people in harm’s way. Silver added, “But there’s still a lot that we need to learn in terms of rapid testing, for example. Would that be a means of getting fans into our buildings? Will there be other protections?”

Silver said the league is taking note of how other leagues, like the NFL and Major League Baseball, are approaching their own plans. Some NFL teams have allowed smaller groups of fans to attend games, but only in open-air stadiums. Obviously, basketball arenas are enclosed spaces without natural airflow.

The NBA has helped pioneer the development of rapid-results tests that can produce results in a short amount of time, but the tests would need to be produced and distributed on a massive scale in order to make much of an impact.

Collective Bargaining Negotiations Upcoming

The NBA has already delayed its draft from October 15 until November 18 so that the league and players can continue negotiating changes to its collective bargaining agreement. The two sides still have to agree on a new salary cap figure or next season, as well as luxury tax thresholds. Silver has previously estimated that about 40 percent of the league’s total revenue stems from having fans in attendance.

The league has lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the pandemic already. However, making sure games can be played while maintaining the safety of players, coaches, staff members, and fans remains the biggest hurdle for the league to clear before beginning play next season.

NBA owners have the option of opting-out of the current collective bargaining agreement at the end of this season, which could further delay when next season begins. The 2019-20 season was originally scheduled to end as late as June 24. If the 2020-21 season doesn’t start until January, the season may last until next September.

The league has maintained that it does not plan to permanently change its schedule away from the standard October-to-June version beyond next season, but that is obviously contingent on things going according to plan and the virus getting under control at some point.

Condensed Schedule?

If the NBA has the goal of starting the 2021-22 season next October, that may require a condensed 2020-21 schedule. Lessening the number of back-to-backs would also reduce the injury of risk to players, which has been an important sticking point for players in recent CBA negotiations. The NBA has toyed with the idea of starting the season around Christmas in the past, as Christmas is one of the landmark TV events on the league’s annual schedule.

The NBA will also have to contend with next summer’s Olympics, which were postponed as a result of the pandemic. The men’s basketball team often attracts some of the NBA’s biggest stars, but those players may not be able to participate if the NBA season is ongoing at the time the Olympics get started in Tokyo.