Portland Trail Blazers: NBA may have pre-Christmas start, short season

Adrian Wojnarowski released a report this week around a possible pre-Christmas NBA start, and no fans, an interesting wrinkle for the Portland Trail Blazers

ESPN’s NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski released a report this week detailing a potential pre-Christmas restart for the NBA. This would be great news for the Portland Trail Blazers and the rest of the league after the massive gap this year with the hiatus caused by COVID-19.

The main wrinkle in this release though, is that they won’t be waiting for the status of COVID to improve so they can have fans in arenas. There will likely be a play-in tournament similar to when the Blazers played the Memphis Grizzlies prior to the 2020 playoffs, but this format probably means that non-essential events like the All-Star game may be cancelled.

A proposed 72 game season would mean that the season could still finish in time for the Olympics break.

The NBA would like teams to stay in markets longer and play multiple games, minimising the amount of travel. Most markets are unable to have more than 500 people in markets, obviously stopping significant amounts of fans being in arenas.

This potential Christmas season start though, means that the NBA draft and free agency will be squeezed into the next few months. The NBA’s salary cap for 2021 still hasn’t been announced as well.

The season starting sooner rather than later is a good thing for finances. The lack of fans means that 40 percent of revenue will be lost, but the TV deals both local and national will inject much needed cash into NBA franchises.

The CBA decisions around salary cap and the related exceptions should be made soon, then teams will be able to start planning for free agency and the 2021 season.