Report: Player reps expected to approve Dec. 22 start date to NBA season

The NBAPA are expected to vote in favour of the league's proposal to start the new season on December 22nd instead of January 18th, mostly because of the financial windfall that would be created by the earlier start.

The NBA’s Board of Governors and the NBPA will hold separate meetings Thursday expected to culminate with an agreement on a Dec. 22 start date to the 2020-2021 season and a reduced 72-game schedule, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski and Zach Lowe.

Per Wojnarowski and Lowe, the NBPA is "planning to take a formal vote of the team player representatives," one which is projected to lead to an official agreement on a pre-Christmas start date.

If an agreement is indeed reached, the plan would be for training camps to open on Dec. 1 following the Nov. 18 draft and subsequent free agency period, and would see the regular season run through to about mid-May.

At this point, the players and league are still negotiating a salary escrow, which Wojnarowski and Lowe report could end up being in the range of 18 per cent over the next two years.

As soon as an agreement is officially attained, the NBA will lift the moratorium period it is currently under and and allow teams to begin making trades prior to the draft.

The NBA has been set on the idea of avoiding the summer Olympics while getting as close to a full regular season in as possible, and so the early start date plus the 72-game schedule (including the annual Christmas Day takeover) will allow them to do just that while reportedly drawing in somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion in short- and long-term revenues to the league and players.

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