National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts expressed concern over the NBA’s tentative timeline of opening training camps for the 2020-21 season on Nov. 10 — less than a month after the proposed end of the NBA Finals in Orlando, Florida.
“I was surprised to see it,” Roberts told ESPN on Thursday night.
The NBA delivered teams a working timeline with a number of revised dates, including the start of training camp on Nov. 10 and opening night on Dec. 1, sources said.
The NBPA’s team representatives are expected to approve the NBA’s plan of a 22-team resumption of the 2019-20 season in Orlando on a Friday conference call. But looming negotiations on a long list of 2020-21 financial and competitive issues will include the league’s hopes of starting next season with such a tight turnaround after this season’s Finals in October.
Changes to the league calendar would be among the many items that have to be collectively bargained with the NBA.
Starting the season in early December would allow many NBA players to participate in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and also would avoid the back end of the NBA playoffs, draft and free agency fighting for attention with the start of the 2021 NFL season.
The NBA’s plans for a resumption at the Disney World Resort in Orlando include a July 31 tip and Oct. 12 as the final possible date for a Game 7 of the Finals — which would leave less than month of time off for players who participate in the Finals. Nevertheless, eight teams are finished for the season now, and most teams in the league will have completed their season by the end of September.
The NBA and NBPA recently reached an agreement to extend until September the original 60-day window that preserves the league’s right to terminate the collective bargaining agreement in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, sources told ESPN.
The extension prolongs the NBA’s ability to trigger the nuclear option to its economic crisis — terminating the CBA under the force majeure event provision — which it could have done within two months of the March 11 shutdown of the league.
ESPN Front Office Insider Bobby Marks contributed to this report.
Source : ESPN
