SALT LAKE CITY — As 26 of the NBA’s 30 teams have transitioned to offseason mode, the biggest question facing the league moving forward is when next season will start.
On Tuesday, commissioner Adam Silver told broadcaster Bob Costas in an interview on CNN that, “I continue to believe that we’re going to be better off getting into January.”
Earlier this month, the Deseret News confirmed a report that NBA teams were sent a memo from the league that said the season would start no earlier than Christmas Day of this year, but Silver said Tuesday that date seems premature at this point.
“The goal for us next season is to play a standard season ... 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.” — NBA commissioner Adam Silver
“The goal for us next season is to play a standard season ... 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 said. “Would that be a means of getting fans into our buildings? Will there be other protections?”
Silver said the NBA is learning from other sports, as well as its own bubble experience in Orlando, about how to carry on safely, but reiterated that “the goal is to play a standard season.”
Costas, who long has been a key face of Olympic Games coverage, asked how the NBA’s schedule might interfere with the Tokyo Summer Games set for next year. Silver essentially said the league will need to worry about its own schedule first and then navigate the Olympics issue.
“These are highly unique and unusual circumstances,” Silver said, “and I think just as it is for the Olympic movement, it is for us as well, and we’re just going to have to sort of find a way to meld and mesh those two competing considerations.”
Those comments came at the end of a nearly 25-minute interview in which the focus was the politics of the NBA. The success of the league’s bubble in Orlando, social justice and the NBA’s presence in China were the other items of discussion.