NBA teams want league to push back draft to no sooner than Aug. 1

With uncertainty about whether this season will resume, it’s hard for NBA teams to plan for what comes next beyond the current shutdown. But eventually they will move on, whether after the resumption of the season or a cancellation, and have to work through the offseason moves.

According to a report on ESPN. com, though, NBA teams are united in hopes of encouraging the league to push back the draft, scheduled for June 25, to no sooner than Aug. 1. The hope is that it will allow teams time to conduct the predraft process of working out prospects whose own seasons were cut short.

The current schedule calls for the NBA draft lottery on May 19 and the NBA draft combine in Chicago from May 21-24.

League sources indicated no decisions have been made yet on how contracts will eventually be worked to account for the shutdown. For example, if the league were to resume play in July, contracts would have already hit their expiration date. A moratorium has been in place on any trades or signings.

Commissioner Adam Silver, speaking on an NBA Together Twitter talk, indicated that no decision on if the season can resume will come before May 1.

“The fact is now, sitting here today, I know less in a way than I did (when the league shut down),” Silver said.“I think in some ways as I listen to the public health experts and the people that are advising us, the virus is potentially moving faster than maybe we had thought at that point and that, therefore, may peak earlier. What that means in terms of our ability to come back in late spring or early summer is still unknown to me.”