Revised CBA, NBA, NBPA Agreement from December 22nd

The two parties announced early Tuesday that the NBA and the NBPA have reached an agreement in principle with the 72-game schedule for the 2020-21 NBA season and a free agency from November 20 to December 22.

This agreement is subject to a vote by the NBA’s Board of Governors. NBA general managers met on Tuesday afternoon to discuss matters.

Free-agent talks will begin at 6pm on November 22nd and ET will begin at 12:01pm on November 22nd so the deal rolls the ball Tuesday as an action-packed and condensed window before games resume. The league has one week to begin negotiations and conclude deals.

The rest of the calendar is empty, with the training camp on December 1 and the tipoff starting on December 22, with the league promising to reveal the full regular-season schedule in the coming weeks.

As trades are likely to be allowed again in the coming days – by then many rosters can be redesigned – where the exact details are still working – and the NBA draft will take place on November 18th. Player and team options are fixed at the same time. The free agency will begin two days after the draft, with about 100 players set for unrestricted status.

The agreement also provides for financial adjustments to parts of the CBA affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. The new system will be used to ensure that the division of basketball-related revenues continues.

The salary cap and tax level will remain at $ 109.1 million and $ 132.6 million, respectively. However, the number of scheduled numbers based on last year’s regular 82-game slate will be affected. These figures are guaranteed to increase by at least three per cent to a maximum of 10 per cent per annum and tax payments will be reduced in proportion to any reductions in basketball-related income.

There are countless other issues to work with, such as all health and safety protocols now that games are not played in the safety of the bubble and teams are once again going to different cities.

For NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers and Eastern Conference Champion Miami Heat, it will be the shortest season in NBA history – seven weeks separating the end of the NBA Finals and the start of training camp on December 1st.

For the eight teams that did not bubble the NBA in Orlando this summer – Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Charlotte, Golden State, Minnesota, New York and Detroit – they have not played since the second week of March. The NBA closed on March 11 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and then took 22 of its 30 teams to Disney to resume the season in July.

With files from the Associated Press