With the NBA considering the possibility of resuming its season in June and potentially completing the NBA Finals in August, ESPN’s Bobby Marks laid out on Twitter how the league’s calendar could hypothetically change for the 2020/21 league year if the NBA decided to push everything back.
As Marks detailed, a new experimental calendar might look something like this:
- Mid-June: Start of playoffs
- Early August: NBA Finals
- Late August: Draft
- September 1: Start of free agency
- September 10: Fall league (In place of Summer league)
- December 10: Training camps open
- December 25: 82-game regular season begins
- Mid-June: Regular season ends
That calendar is almost exactly the one Hawks CEO Steve Koonin proposed earlier this month at the Sloan Conference, as we noted last week. Koonin’s argument was that pushing everything back by a couple months would result in less overlap between the NBA and NFL seasons and would increase the amount of time that MLB regular season games are the NBA’s only competition among the four major sports.
Of course, Koonin didn’t have the current situation in mind when he put forth his proposal, but depending on how the coronavirus spread plays out, the layoff may line up in a way that allows the NBA to test the idea if the league doesn’t want to shorten the 2020/21 season too.
NBA reporters and fans who responded to Koonin’s proposal and Marks’ tweet have had mixed opinions. Many have pushed back against losing the summer break that typically follows free agency and Summer League play in July, August, and September. This schedule would also limit NBA players’ ability to participate in international offseason competitions, such as the Olympics or World Cup.
Still, there has been a good amount of support for the idea. The fall is one of the busiest times in sports, with the MLB and MLS postseasons happening, as well as the NHL and NFL regular seasons. Pushing the NBA’s opening night back to December would mean avoiding much of that overlap and turning the Christmas Day showcase into an event that occurs at or near the start of the regular season. Plus, as Marc Stein of The New York Times tweets, many NBA teams would actually be in favor of their players not participating in offseason events like the Olympics.
At this point, even with the NBA’s hiatus threatening to upend this year’s schedule, the idea of making a permanent change to the league’s calendar is probably just a pipe dream. But we want to know what you think.
Would you be in favor of shifting the entire NBA calendar back by about six-to-eight weeks on a permanent basis? Or do you prefer the current setup?
Vote in our poll, then head to the comment section below to share your thoughts!
Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote.
They want to continue the season…then push next season back?
They are thinking way too hard. A pandemic happened, Games were canceled, the country is in turmoil. Shut it down, start again fresh when you can. And that could be a while.
To be clear, I don’t know that the calendar Marks laid out is one that the NBA is seriously considering for next season. It’s just a hypothetical for now. But presumably if the league did resume this season in the summer and played the Finals in July or August, players wouldn’t love the idea of reporting to training camps for the following season at the usual time in September.
Playoff serieses should be reduced from 7 to 3 for this year. Not enough time or patience for 7-game serieses.
2 month delay would make sense for next season but is too much normally, too strange. Its a wintertime sport, start at Thanksgiving, 1 month delay.
Assuming normality returns!
Players are already getting a break now, they don’t a full off-season. Start it on time in October as usual.
The Koonin plan makes some sense anyway, regardless of the virus. I think the NBA starts too soon anyway… There’s like a rush of things occuring in the fall.
Also, while there’s a bit of picking on baseball in the Koonin plan, it’s wise to recognize the status of football.
We’ll see if this social experiment works either way. Let it play out and decide after next seaon. I don’t mind trying it and seeing more games. Nba seaon ends, nfl seaon starts. I dislike mlb.
Just throw in the towel for this season. Start next season on time. And don’t disrupt 2 years.
sadly that’s the way I would want it to go. If this schedule is what they are thinking, just cancel the rest of this season and start like normal for the 2020-21 season, instead of screwing the rest of this yr up and in effect also completely redoing everything
I personally love the idea even a Month ago-
We basically shift away from basketball in Oct Nov early Dec a bit naturally for NFL and Baseball playoffs-
Knowing Xmas is when basketball really begins and will hold the torch for us Jan-June
I think they should make every attempt to play this years playoffs no matter how late – Playoffs are what the NBA stands for too much-Its about missions, battles, drama, storylines, fueds Twitter battles etc etc every series
You cant really say the same in Baseball and football playoffs wise, Hockey def but not to many hockey fans around these days, hockeys nuts come playoffs
Denying players the ring this year would be the most stupid thing ever, might be Giannis only ever shot at one, LBJ’s last & everything in between, simply non acceptable to do that.
I think starting the season in December makes too much sense not to do it.
Finals in August is like a dream come true, usually August is the worst month of the year in sports, that would make it the best.
If players can’t go to Olympics, well that is a bonus not a negative for sure.