Since the COVID-19 pandemic stopped the season and forced the NBA into a bubble at Walt Disney World, the league has said it hopes to begin the 2020-21 season by Dec. 1.
That date, Commissioner Adam Silver said on Thursday night on ESPN, is starting to feel ‘a little early’.
Silver wants to have fans in the stands
Silver, speaking ahead of the NBA draft lottery, said the top goal for league play is to play back into the respective home markets of teams.
Doing so by Dec. 1, however, may simply not be possible.
“Our No. 1 goal is to get fans back into our arenas,” Silver told ESPN. “My point is in working with the Players’ Association, if we could push ourselves back a little bit longer and increase the chances of having fans in arenas, that’s what we would do.”
Silver did not give a date when he thinks the 2020-21 season could actually begin. However, it seems that the league is willing to wait as long as possible to do this – as about 40 percent of the league’s revenue comes from ticket sales and other profits related to having fans at games.
If you even have to play part of next season in a bubble, the league would hurt financially, even more than it already has. Trying out how to play a regular season in a bubble logistics, instead of just eight games each and then the post season like they do now, would also be very tricky.
The regular season is also not all that is expected to be postponed.
The NBPA, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, believes that free agency will be pushed back by “several weeks.” Free agency is currently slated to launch on October 18, two days after the NBA draft. It is important per the report to delay both the launch of free agency and the concept together, although it is unclear how much.
Beginning next season through Dec. 1, as the league had long hoped, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said, “starting to feel” a little early. “(AP / Ashley Landis, pool)
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