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Charlotte Hornets basketball is just around the corner. The NBA and NBPA have agreed on plans for the 2020-21 season, which includes a December 22nd start date and a 72 game season.
The National Basketball Players Association has voted to tentatively approve NBA’s proposal for the 2020-21 campaign starting on Dec. 22 and playing 72-game season, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @Stadium.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 6, 2020
NBA set to tip off Christmas week.
The NBA hopes to have some fans in arenas right away, with the potential of adding more and more if the United States can finally get this whole pandemic thing under control.
The coronavirus pandemic has made life fluid, and a clinical vaccine will play a role in this too. NBA's goal is some amount of fans to start the season, depending on each market's restrictions. Courtside fans, for instance, would be about 10-to-12 feet away, sources said. https://t.co/9I9cdN1gN3
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 5, 2020
There is a lot of other financial stuff that I don’t understand that’s included in this too. But that’s for another time (maybe).
The late December start would make this the shortest gap between the end of one season and the start of another in any of the United States’ four major sports leagues. That means the offseason schedule will be extremely condensed, so buckle up.
The draft is set for November 18th, which is less than two weeks away. The moratorium on trades will be lifted shortly before that. Team training camps are supposed to open December 1st. Somewhere in the middle of all that, free agency has to start. In order to give free agents time to find and get acquainted with new teams, it’ll probably start just a couple days after the draft.
In short, basketball news is about to start coming in quickly and furiously. It’s going to be a lot of fun.