NBA players may only be offered a 50-game season if the players’ union insists on a mid-January start rather than the Dec. 22 proposal.
The league’s television partners do not want the 2020-2021 season to “stray past” mid-July or overlap with the Tokyo Olympics, according to Marc Stein of The New York Times.
A 50-game schedule would “significantly” reduce player salaries in 2020-2021 since NBA pay adheres to a regular season schedule, Stein also notes.
The proposed Dec. 22 start date would include a 72-game schedule that features roughly 14 games a month through May, followed by playoffs through mid-July before the Olympics begin.
Indiana Pacers guard Malcolm Brogdon, who is the Vice President of the NBPA, said the season will start on either Dec. 22 or Jan. 18, the date that most players prefer.
Brogdon also expects that today’s deadline to negotiate changes to the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) will be pushed back for a fourth time, as all parties involved are “antsy for clarity.”
