Upcoming 2020-21 NBA season to reportedly start sometime in December

The National Basketball Association is reportedly targeting to start the 2020-21 season sometime in December, according to the Associated Press and ESPN.

The Associated Press reported that the league is eyeing to start the new season back up on Dec. 22, as well as teams playing 70 games.

According to ESPN, the board of governors met Friday and discussed potentially starting the 2021-22 season on Christmas Day to take advantage of that “historically prime NBA showcase” and play fewer than 82 games.

The 2019-20 season just ended on Oct. 11 when the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Miami Heat for the NBA Championship.

And man, was last season a doozy: the season was suspended back in March after Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert tested positive for the virus before they were to play the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The season then resumed in July in a bubble-like atmosphere at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports near Orlando, Florida.

Players then boycotted in the middle of the playoffs and games were postponed, which led to other leagues around the sports world to boycott games in the wake of a police shooting in Wisconsin.

If the NBA does decide to begin playing near the end of December, that means training camps would start near the end of November, the AP reported.

On Thursday, the league officially announced that it was holding its upcoming draft virtually this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The draft will be conducted at ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut on Nov. 18.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum will announce the selections live.