Silver: Next season likely won’t start till ’21
The NBA's 2020-21 season looks increasingly unlikely to include games in 2020.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver, in a CNN interview with Bob Costas, said a Christmas Day start to the season was a best-case scenario that he now considers unlikely because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“My best guess is that the 202021 season … won't start until '21,” Silver said. “We said that the earliest we would start is Christmas. But the more I'm learning, even listening to Dr. (Anthony) Fauci this morning, I continue to believe we're going to be better off getting into January.”
The 2019-20 NBA Finals are not scheduled to be completed until the middle of next month, with the NBA draft set for Nov. 18 and the start of free agency several days later. A December start would have left a quick turnaround before the start of next season's training camp.
Even starting in January, Silver said the NBA's goal would be to play a full 82-game regular season.
“Further, the goal would be to play games in home arenas, in front of fans,” he said.
Silver said a widely available COVID-19 vaccine could be a key in allowing games to be played in home arenas with fans, as opposed to the single-site bubble that has been used to complete the 2019-20 season.
“There's still a lot we need to learn in terms of rapid testing, for example,” Silver said. “Would that be a means of getting our fans into our building? And also other protections, some of the things we're learning down in Orlando currently on the campus down there, and also clearly learning a lot from other sports with what baseball is currently doing, what football is doing, college sports are now beginning playing.
“So there's a lot of new information out there in the marketplace that we're looking to absorb. But the goal is to play a standard season.”
If the season does not begin until January or February and includes the customary 82-game schedule, the revised timing would jeopardize the availability of NBA players for the Olympics beginning July 23.
The season would not be the first played entirely in one calendar year. The 1998-99 season did not begin until January because of a work stoppage. The 2011-12 season began on Christmas Day.