Buckle up, because the best part of basketball’s offseason already is upon us.
The NBA and its Players’ Association announced Monday they reached an agreement on amending their collective bargaining agreement in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic pause throwing everything out of whack in 2020.
Last week, the two sides settled on a 72-game season that will begin Dec. 22, and the NBA is keeping its Nov. 18 date for the 2020 draft. The free agency window will be squeezed in between, with negotiations starting on Nov. 20 at 6 p.m. ET, and signings allowed to take place two days later on Nov. 22 at 12:01 p.m. ET.
Also ironed out was next season’s salary cap, which will be $109.14 million, with the luxury tax level also remaining the same as last year at $132.7 million.
Going forward in the following seasons of the current CBA, both the salary cap and tax level is set to increase between at least three percent to a maximum of ten percent from the year prior.
Additionally, the NBA will use a new system to ensure the split of basketball-related income, with a 10 percent escrow held from player salaries. Any additional reductions will be spread across that season and the following two, but with no single year seeing a greater reduction than 20 percent.
Got all that?
Finally, teams and their general managers have a foundation set to start building on what will be their next season. But it’s about to get pretty busy.
And in the blink of an eye, basketball will be back.
