The NBA’s season was extremely disrupted, like many sports leagues, by the COVID-19 pandemic.
But finally its revamped return calendar has taken shape.
With the NBA’s announcement Thursday officially stating its Board of Governors approved a 22-team format with a hopeful start date of July 31, it also revealed that the 2020 NBA Draft Lottery is postponed for August, preceding an October draft.
“If, as tentatively scheduled, the season resumes on July 31, then the 2020 NBA Draft Lottery would be rescheduled for Aug. 25, the 2020 NBA Draft would be held on Oct. 15 and the 2020-21 NBA regular season would likely begin on Dec. 1, 2020,” the league said in its statement.
“The 14 NBA Lottery teams would be the eight teams that do not participate in the restart and the six teams that participate in the restart but do not qualify for the playoffs. These teams would be seeded in the lottery and assigned odds based on their records through games of March 11. The 16 playoff teams would draft in inverse order of their combined records across regular-season games and seeding games.”
Circle your calendars, via @wojespn. pic.twitter.com/TWPnN1mseL
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) June 4, 2020
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski first reported the news, which the NBA confirmed Thursday afternoon.
So with the NBA Draft cutting into a hypothetical school year for prospects, the NCAA has implemented a cut-off date for student-athletes who have already declared to withdraw from the draft with out losing a year of collegiate eligibility.
