NBPA and NBA Agreed to Shortened 2020-2021 Season

The National Basketball Players Association and the National Basketball Association have agreed to terms on the upcoming 2020-2021 season, which include a Dec. 22 start date and a 72-game schedule. The league has also transitioned the Toronto Raptors into the United States to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.

During the era of COVID-19, the NBA suspended its play in March, just weeks before the NBA Playoffs were set to commence. Since the league’s initial postponement of the 2019-2020 season, it came together with the NBPA to put forth a safe plan to finish out the year and crown a champion. The Orlando Bubble served as the NBA’s home from July until October, where players were quarantined on a Disney property. A successful product of this environment was the Los Angeles Lakers earning an NBA Championship on Oct. 11, which was just over two weeks before the next NBA season would normally start.

4x NBA Champion LeBron James as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers (Wikimedia Commons)

The 2020-2021 NBA season will start on Dec. 22, but for the most part, teams will be back at their home facilities and will travel for road games. A unique wrinkle in league travel plans throughout the coronavirus pandemic includes the Toronto Raptors making their way south, as the franchise will play its home games in Tampa Bay, Florida. It is a sacrifice that has to be made in order to cut out international travel entirely for the safety of players and coaching staffs around the league.

Deliberations for the start date of the upcoming NBA season were drawn out, as some players felt as though Dec. 22 was an unreasonable time to return to action. The current NBA offseason will only last 71 days, which is the shortest amount of time in between seasons in the history of major American professional sports. Those 71 days of “downtime” do not take into consideration that players are required to report to training camp, and compete in preseason games ahead of the regular season’s commencement. NBA preseason contests start on Dec. 11, and will be played until Dec. 19.

An unprecedented adjustment period such as this quick turnaround is even more difficult for NBA players that have been on the move in recent weeks, as the free agency period opened up, and a slew of trades have occurred across the league. Future Hall of Fame point guard Chris Paul was traded to the Phoenix Suns after leading the Oklahoma City Thunder to the NBA Playoffs this past season. He resides in Los Angeles, but will soon have to ingratiate himself into the Phoenix community, all while preparing for his 16^th NBA season.

In speaking with basketball fanatic and Saint Louis University film scholar Sean Wisbey about the abrupt return to the court, his sentiments remained in line with advocacy for the players.

“I’m still coming down from the intense competition that went down in The Bubble. I can’t even begin to comprehend this shortened recovery period for world-class athletes such as NBA superstars,” said Wisbey.

The league itself will be impacted by COVID-19 throughout the 2020-2021 season, just as the NFL has been over the past several months. Adding cross-country travel into the mix will put players at a higher risk of contracting the virus compared to the most recent “Bubble” format.

Madison-area athletic trainer Kanha Mann suggested that the NBA should have put the players’ health interests above all else when it came time to evaluate the return to basketball.

“Professional athletes work tirelessly to get themselves into playing shape, and some could argue that the transition will be easier with such a rapid offseason. I don’t believe it’s healthy to give young athletes such a minuscule recovery period from a grueling season,” said Mann.

The NBA has yet another unprecedented season ahead, and its players have to shift their focus to live competition in the next two weeks, as preseason games are set to tip off on Dec. 11.