According to commissioner Adam Silver, the target date for the new season to begin for the Milwaukee Bucks and wider NBA is currently January 2021.
Even as the Conference Finals roll on, with the Milwaukee Bucks eliminated, fans of the team and the players themselves are already likely turning much of their attention to next season.
The problem on that front is the extreme uncertainty that exists over what next season will look like and when it may begin.
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There may be some light at the end of the tunnel in that regard, though, as speaking to Bob Costas on CNN on Tuesday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver offered up one of the first public indications of what the future may hold in store for the league.
Although by no means definitive, Silver laid out his current feeling on how the timeline for a 2020-21 season could shake out when asked by Costas when his best guess would be for the new season starting:
"“I continue to believe that we’re going to be better off getting into January. The goal for us next season is to play a standard season … an 82-game season and playoffs. And further, the goal would be to play games in home arenas in front of fans, but there’s still a lot that we need to learn in terms of rapid testing, for example.”"
Silver noted that although there have been previous reports about a Christmas start date, his belief based on the constantly evolving stream of information available to them is that waiting until January will present a better option.
That timeline, and a commitment to completing a full season, will lead to a clash with the Tokyo Olympics, if that event goes ahead at its rescheduled dates.
With January as the target, it would seem like a logical potential opening day would Monday, January 18. Martin Luther King Day has long been one of the league’s marquee days on the schedule, and the holiday would seem perfect to give the NBA a platform style launch, while also tying into the social justice initiatives that have been at the forefront of the players’ minds in recent months too.
Of course, with the aim being to have games in home arenas and have fans in attendance, it goes without saying that any element of that plan would still seem to be very far from set in stone.
Depending on how the situation with the virus evolves in the US over the coming months, that plan may yet need to be reappraised one way or another.
Still, with the draft set for November 18, and free agency likely to follow in the days after that, it at least seems like planning can begin for the Bucks and the rest of the NBA for what comes next.