Due to the unfortunate circumstances of the spread of the coronavirus, a lot of things have been looking a bit different than usual. We already saw how the coronavirus had an impact on the league, with the league going on a 4-5 month of hiatus because of it.
We got to see the NBA ‘Bubble’ at Orlando earlier this year, a bio-bubble environment created by the NBA to complete the season. Well, the league wasn’t the way we were used to seeing it. No fans, social distancing, staffs wearing masks, the arena was all new to us.
As the 2020-2021 NBA season is on its way, we have a quick overview of the upcoming NBA season.
The regular NBA season usually starts in October, but this year the season will start on 22nd December. Each team will be playing 72 regular-season games, instead of the traditional 81 regular-season games. The league has condensed the schedule in order to finish the season in time for the 2021-2022 NBA season.
Usually, there is a longer offseason period. But for teams like Lakers, Heat, Celtics and Nuggets, who had deep playoffs run, they will be receiving only 8-9 weeks of offseason to gear up for the season. This is has resulted in many players throughout the league to miss a few matches at the start of the season, for some reason or another.
One of the most important thing for the association is to fight coronavirus while organising an, as normal as possible, league. The association has released a 134-pages guideline to teams which have to be followed strictly and at all times. Just the way, the NBA had an anonymous hotline to report potential violations of safety protocols, there will be a similar type of hotline during the continuity of the whole season. Teams travelling parties will be limited to 45 people, including 17 players.
One of the good things this season is that we get to see home and away action. Teams will play matches in their arenas and not in any kind of bubble. The season is expected to start on 22nd December and will go on till 5th March 2021. March 5th-10th will be the All-Star break, with the resumption of the league from May 11th.
There will be a play-in tournament for the 7th and 8th seed spot, a fight between the 7th to 10th seed teams, to enter the playoffs. This play-in tournament will be played between 18th May-21st May. The playoffs are expected to start by 22nd May and the season is expected to be concluded by 22nd July.
Even though this year is different from a normal season, one thing is guaranteed that this will be an exciting and fun season to watch and a challenging one for the players.
