NBA Teams Reportedly Preparing for Free Agency to Begin as Early as Nov. 20

The 2020 NBA free-agency period could begin as early as Nov. 20 if the league moves forward with a proposal to begin the 2020-21 season in December.

Marc Stein of the New York Times reported Nov. 20 and 21 are being the dates floated as the potential start of free agency. The 2020 NBA draft will be held Nov. 18, and the league is currently considering a Dec. 22 start date for the next regular season.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a September interview on CNN that the soonest he expected games to be played was January.

"We said a week ago or so that the earliest we would start is Christmas of this year. But the more I'm learning even listening to Dr. Fauci this morning, I continue to believe that we're going to be better off getting into January.

"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."

The NBA's push to start the 2020-21 season earlier should be seen as a sign of pessimism, rather than optimism, regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting earlier would signal the league is less enthused about the possibility of having fans in the stands next season and will instead focus on getting in as many games as possible. The overarching reason for pushing the start date of next season back would have been a belief that the pandemic would have been under enough control to get fans in the stands and recoup that revenue.

Silver has said fan attendance represents about 40 percent of the NBA's revenue. 

Without optimism about fan attendance, it's likely imperative that the league gets itself back on a normal schedule for 2021-22—when it's reasonable to expect a COVID vaccine to be available. The NBA saw record dips in ratings during the Orlando bubble, in part due to scheduling into the summer months and against football as well as the national election cycle.

A December start date would require quick negotiations with the National Basketball Players Association, which may push back on such a quick turnaround for teams that made deep playoff runs. The Lakers and Heat would have less than two months off between the end of the Finals and a likely start date to training camps for a Dec. 22 start. 

A start of free agency would also require the NBA to get its books in order, setting the salary cap for 2020-21 amid financial uncertainty for the league. ESPN's Zach Lowe said on his Lowe Post podcast that the NBA is currently looking at a cap of around $109 million, which would be flat from last season.