After several days of discussion, the NBA executive board and the NBPA players association made an official announcement on the opening date of the 2020/21 NBA season.
As announced by the NBA as well as NBPA, NBA 2020/21 season will kick off from December 22. This season will only have 72 regular-season matches instead of 82 matches in previous seasons.
The shortening of the number of matches is to ensure the 2020/21 season can end early to avoid coinciding with the Tokyo 2021 Olympic schedule which will start at the end of July next year. Expectedly, this season will end around early July and will have enough time for the US team to gather players to prepare for the Olympics in Japan.
Previously, it was originally expected that the 2020/2021 season will also begin to start from October this year. Since the 2019/2020 season will have to end much later than expected, the NBA management is looking to postpone the 2020/2021 season to December 1 this year.
According to some NBA players and the most Vietnamese betting reputable website w88vietbet.com, if the 2020/2021 season starts from the beginning of December this year, the teams that progress deeply in the Playoffs this season will not have enough time preparing for the next season.
NBA 2020/21 season will end soon
The NBA 2020/21 season is expected to end soon so that the American basketball team can focus on the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games after that.
Previously, there were some opinions against the opening of the 2020/21 season on December 22. They argue that the effects of the pandemic are not over and the players need more time to rest before entering the new season.
However, leaving the opening day of the tournament to January 2021 and reducing the regular-season number to 60 games will greatly affect the revenue. Therefore, the Basketball Players Association NBPA and the tournament management have agreed on the opening date of the tournament to be December 22, a few days before the Christmas and New Year holidays.
The urgent organization may pose a high risk of injury
The opening of the tournament right before the holidays will boost revenue for the tournament. It brings in a large amount of money from television rights to the basketball teams. Besides, many prestigious online casinos like w88vietbet.com also benefit a lot from the betting activities in this tournament.
However, this will also bring a lot of consequences. One of them is that the early return to practice and play will cause overcrowding to the players. It may lead to injuries and physical damage during the next season.
Moreover, time for the teams to do the pre-season preparation will be shortened. Player transfer activities and pre-season training camps will also be affected significantly. Also, the movement of the teams to cities that are still affected by the Covid-19 pandemic will pose potential dangers to athletes.
Although there will be huge hurdles, the NBA executive has just held a very successful round of Playoffs gathering in Orlando. This is also the basis for Chairman Adam Silver and the tournament management team to believe in bringing the tournament back sooner to please basketball fans around the world.
NBA teams are likely to face an extremely dense schedule next season
According to Atlanta Hawks CEO Travis Schlenk, NBA teams are likely to face a very tight schedule next season due to time pressure.
Mr. Schlenk also said that NBA management still wants each team to play 82 matches in the Regular Season next season as usual. With the 2020/2021 season going to start a lot later than expected due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is no surprise that the upcoming NBA season’s schedule will be very dense. Teams may have to play 2 matches in 2 consecutive days or 4 matches in 5 consecutive days when the time for next season to take place will be shortened quite a lot.
The board may have to accept a reduction in the number of games next season as they did in 2011/2012 and 1998/1999. The problem of the players’ fitness will probably be the problem that many teams will face next season with a dense schedule. In this situation, teams will need to calculate to build a squad with good depth for the 2020/2021 season.
