NBA, NBPA Agree To Extend CBA Termination Deadline Again
The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association have once again reached an agreement to push back the 60-day window giving each side the right to terminate the league’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter). According to Wojnarowski, October 15 is the new deadline for modifications to the CBA for 2020/21.
The NBA and NBPA first agreed to push back the Collective Bargaining Agreement termination deadline in May. The agreement gives the two sides more time to make the necessary adjustments to the CBA for the 2020/21 season to account for the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
[RELATED: Board Of Governors Discusses Moving Draft, Free Agency, Start Of Next Season]
As Wojnarowski explains (via Twitter), an October 15 deadline will allow the NBA to complete the current season and should give the two sides a chance to make more informed decisions for the future based on the 2019/20 end-of-season revenues.
The pandemic has resulted in NBA revenue losses for this season and will affect its projected revenues going forward. However, there’s still optimism that the league and the players’ union can reach agreements on temporary changes to the Collective Bargaining Agreement and figure out next season’s salary cap without requiring the “nuclear option” of terminating the CBA, tweets Woj.
“Extending is an easy call,” NBPA executive director Michele Roberts told ESPN (Twitter link). “If everyone continues to be well-intentioned on how we deal with the economic effects of this virus, we’ll just make the appropriate adjustments and there won’t be a need to terminate the CBA at all.”
While the 2020/21 season presents a number of logistical and financial challenges on its own, teams will also hope to get some clarity this fall on what the salary cap might look like in 2021/22, ESPN’s Bobby Marks notes (via Twitter). The Jazz, for example, will have the opportunity to extend Rudy Gobert this offseason, but a new deal for him would go into effect in ’21/22 and his first-year salary would likely be based on a percentage of the cap.
Coronavirus Notes: Workouts, Campus Blues, Guests
After teams are eliminated from contention in Orlando, their players can utilize home team facilities for voluntary workouts if they’re under contract, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets. The NBA will allow up to four players at a time at the facility with one staff member per individual workout. Coronavirus testing will be optional and the teams would have to foot the bill for those tests, Charania adds.
We have more notes from the Disney World complex:
- Being confined to the Orlando campus has become an increasingly difficult challenge for the players, according to The Associated Press’ Brian Mahoney. The players have become more stressed in the playoffs and can’t get away from the unique atmosphere. “We don’t get to go home. We don’t get to be away from basketball, even for a few hours,” Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo said. “If things were normal, we’d be back home playing in our home court and after the game we’d go home. … You’re just comfortable. But now it just feels like we’re always at work. You cannot escape basketball.”
- The league has reported five consecutive rounds of no positive tests but there’s concern about what will happen when guests arrive in Orlando after the first round of the playoffs, ESPN’s Baxter Holmes notes. Via guidelines established by the league and the Players’ Association, each player will be allowed to bring in four guests — and they can exceed that figure for children. Those guests can travel on team charters following coronavirus testing. The earliest clearance date for guests to enter the bubble itself would be August 31.
- In case you missed it, commissioner Adam Silver said late last week that the start of next season would likely be moved beyond the previous projected date of December 1.
Silver No Longer Optimistic About December 1 Start For 2020/21
NBA commissioner Adam Silver told ESPN’s Rachel Nichols ahead of tonight’s draft lottery that he now expects the league’s previously-estimated December 1 start date for the 2020/21 regular season to be pushed back, per Brian Windhorst of ESPN.
In explaining his thinking, Silver indicated that he would prefer to have fans be able to attend games in person next season.
“I think our No. 1 goal is to get fans back in our arenas,” he told Nichols. “So my sense is, in working with the [National Basketball] Players Association, if we could push back even a little longer and increase the likelihood of having fans in arenas, that’s what we would be targeting.”
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has prevented gatherings of large crowds, with fan attendance for major concerts, indoor movie theaters, and sporting events having been widely postponed until 2021. The United States saw 43,798 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yesterday.
Until an effective vaccine is widely available to the public, it may be difficult to allow fans inside basketball arenas, though Silver remains hopeful that the anticipated development fast-response coronavirus tests may soon make in-arena attendance more feasible.
Crowd attendance makes up a significant portion of the league’s seasonal revenue. Per the Windhorst piece, Silver accredits approximately 40% of NBA revenue to fans filling arenas.
NBPA Preparing For Possible Delay Of Free Agency Start Date
The National Basketball Players Association is preparing players for the possibility that the start of the 2020 free agency period will be postponed by several weeks, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
As Wojnarowski explains, the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in major uncertainty about the league’s projected revenues for the 2020/21 season. Delaying the October 18 free agency start date would give both the NBA and NBPA more time to formulate the parameters of the 2020/21 salary cap and luxury tax lines.
The NBA previously projected a $115MM salary cap and a $139MM tax threshold for the ’20/21 season. However, that projection was released in January and hasn’t been updated in recent months to account for the pandemic, which has had a huge financial impact on the league.
According to Wojnarowski, with the October 16 draft fast approaching, front offices around the NBA are concerned about the lack of updated cap and tax projections in place, since those estimates allow teams to make roster decisions with a clearer sense of the financial ramifications.
Before finalizing its projections, the league will likely want to wait as long as possible to determine whether fans can safely be allowed to return to arenas next season. As Woj notes, the NBA may also deviate from its usual formula to determine next year’s salary cap, artificially smoothing it to avoid a significant drop based on lost revenues. The NBA and NBPA continue to collectively bargain those issues.
The NBA’s tentative offseason schedule would allow free agents to begin negotiating with teams at 5:00 pm central time on October 18, just two days after the draft. The new league year is officially scheduled to begin on October 19.
However, that calendar was created when it looked as if next season would begin as early as December 1. If the start of the ’20/21 regular season is pushed back, there may not be as much urgency to open free agency that soon. According to Wojnarowski, the NBPA has been privately suggesting to players that the season could start sometime in late December or in the new year.
Although Wojnarowski’s report suggests that free agency seems more likely than not to be delayed, it’s not clear whether this year’s draft date will be affected. According to Woj, many teams have interest in connecting the draft and free agency and postponing them together.
And-Ones: Ujiri, COVID-19 Testing, Injury Policy, P. Gasol
Raptors president Masai Ujiri has filed a countersuit in connection with an incident at Oracle Arena last year on the night his team won the NBA title, writes Laura Armstrong of The Toronto Star. The 108-page claim, filed Tuesday in an Oakland court, relates to an altercation with security guard Alan Strickland, who tried to stop Ujiri from going onto the court to celebrate with the Raptors.
The suit includes a body-cam video allegedly showing that Ujiri wasn’t the aggressor in the dispute. Ujiri can be seen trying to pull out his team credentials before Strickland grabs him by the jacket and pushes him backward, according to Armstrong.
“After being shoved and cursed at, Mr. Ujiri did not respond aggressively toward Mr. Strickland,” the lawsuit states. “… Rather than trying to communicate with Mr. Ujiri, Mr. Strickland chose to dismiss Mr. Ujiri’s claim that he was the Raptors’ president and ignore the all-access credential Mr. Ujiri was trying to show him. Mr. Strickland then forcefully shoved Mr. Ujiri a second time.”
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- The NBA’s “bubble environment” at the Disney World complex continues to be a success. The league announced today that the latest round of testing produced no positive results among the 341 players tested (Twitter link).
- The league is changing its policy on reporting injuries, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. Teams have been told they must be specific about reasons why players are sidelined rather than using general terms such as conditioning, reconditioning, soreness and fatigue. “If a player has been diagnosed with a fracture of any type, the team’s public injury report must disclose the injury even if the player is certain to play in the team’s next game,” the memo states.
- If Pau Gasol is going to make a comeback next season, it won’t be with Barcelona, according to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. Team president Josep Maria Bartomeu said his franchise can’t afford Gasol. “He is a person who has helped us a lot, he is an ambassador for Barcelona and represents us in the U.S.,” Bartomeu said. “He is an NBA star, and Barcelona would hardly pay what he asks.” There was speculation of a deal in July, but that later fell through.
- Stanton Kidd, who briefly played for the Jazz this season, has signed with Ormanspor in Turkey, Carchia writes in a separate story. The small forward started the season with Utah, but was waived in November after appearing in four games.
Eight Teams Left Out Of Restart To Conduct Workouts At Home Sites
The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association have finalized an agreement that will allow the eight teams who were not invited to Orlando to conduct voluntary group workouts at their team facilities, according to a league press release.
The teams will each reside in a campus-like environment under controlled conditions. The agreement includes comprehensive health and safety protocols.
The workout program is scheduled to take place Sept. 14–Oct. 6 and will be implemented in phases. The first phase, which will be held Sept. 14-2o, will consist of voluntary individual workouts at team facilities and the commencement of daily COVID-19 testing for all players and staff planning to participate in group workouts.
The second phase will occur from Sept. 21–Oct. 6. It will consist of group training activities in market, which may include practices, skill or conditioning sessions, and intra-squad scrimmages. Daily coronavirus testing will continue during that phase and each team will create its own campus-like environment in its home city.
The “campus” will include the team’s facilities and private living accommodations for all participating players and team staff. In order to participate in group training activities, players and team staff must remain on the campus.
In addition to players under contract with the team, each of the eight teams may also include up to five players who are not currently under an NBA contract, but who were under an NBA G League contract and assigned to the team’s NBAGL affiliate this season.
Discussions about organized team activities (OTAs) – including group workouts and scrimmages – for those eight clubs have been ongoing for weeks. There was plenty of speculation that the teams would convene at one site but obviously both the league and NBAPA decided it would be easier and safer to keep the teams in their home cities.
The Warriors, Timberwolves, Cavaliers, Hawks, Pistons, Knicks, Bulls, and Hornets were the eight teams left out of the restart.
Pacific Notes: Myers, McGruder, Hollins, Dumars
Warriors general manager Bob Myers admits it’s a little unsettling potentially drafting a player that he may have not seen in person or viewed in an individual workout due to the pandemic. Myers’ comments were posted on the team’s website.
“It’s a rare thing to not have … I would have liked to see more guys than I did, but if you’re talking about me, that’s a possibility,” Myers said. “If you’re talking about our group, I think between us all, somebody will have seen the person at least play.”
Myers also says it’s too early to speculate whether he might trade his first-round pick until the lottery is drawn on Thursday: “Nobody is talking about trades. … Even assuming we had the pick number in hand, it’s premature to even know the value of it, for us or for another team, so we’ll have to wait and see kind of how things go in that direction.”
We have more from the Pacific Division:
- Clippers guard Rodney McGruder has signed with Octagon Sports as his representative, the entertainment management organization tweets. McGruder is signed through next season but his $5MM salary for 2021/22 is not guaranteed.
- Veteran Lakers assistant Lionel Hollins was not permitted to coach at the Orlando campus but he’s still involved in the team’s planning and preparation, as Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times details. Hollins watches practices live and prepares scouting reports with two other assistants, one of whom is in Orlando. The 66-year-old was deemed a high risk for the coronavirus due to preexisting conditions.
- Joe Dumars, now the interim GM with the Kings, has a lot on his plate this offseason, as Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee details. Along with the draft, Dumars will try to work out a contract extension with point guard De’Aaron Fox. Bogdan Bogdanovic is headed to restricted free agency, while Kent Bazemore, Harry Giles, and Alex Len will be unrestricted. Dumars could also explore trades involving Buddy Hield, whose large extension kicks in next season after a very disappointing 2019/20 season.
COVID-19 Notes: Nurkic, Testing, Roster Moves, Bamba
Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic turned in one of the best games of his career Saturday, shortly after learning that his grandmother had died of COVID-19, writes Jason Owens of Yahoo Sports. Nurkic helped Portland claim the eighth seed in the West with 22 points, 21 rebounds, and six assists in a win over Memphis, but admitted he was almost too devastated to take the court.
“I didn’t want to play. She made me play,” Nurkic said afterward. “… I’m glad we won and are in the playoffs. That’s what we came for.”
Nurkic briefly considered leaving the Disney World campus after his grandmother was diagnosed in late July. He has been one of the keys to the resurgent Blazers after being sidelined for more than a year with a compound fracture in his left leg.
There’s more coronavirus-related news:
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency approval to a saliva-based test for COVID-19 that was funded by the NBA and its players union, according to Zach Lowe of ESPN. Developed at Yale University, the test, called SalivaDirect, is intended for public screening. It was given to some NBA players and staff members in Orlando, and the results nearly matched the nasal swab test that is now is widespread use. “(The Yale test) loses a little bit of sensitivity, but what we gain is speed and that it should be up to 10 times cheaper,” said Nathan Grubaugh, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale.
- With the seeding games over, the NBA’s rules for roster moves have changed, tweets Bobby Marks of ESPN. The 16 teams remaining in Orlando can only replace players who test positive for the virus, and the new player can’t have more than three years of NBA experience. Prior to Saturday, teams were still permitted to replace players who decided to opt out.
- Mohamed Bamba and the Magic hope further medical testing will determine why he had so much physical difficulty after contracting the coronavirus, writes Iliana Limon Romero of The Orlando Sentinel. Bamba felt strong when he arrived at Disney World, but he was never able to fully get back into game shape. He left the campus Friday and is done for the season. “Mo went home and he’s going to have tests so that we can find out what the issues are for sure,” coach Steve Clifford explained. “He had been working hard and he just didn’t feel good. So he wasn’t seeing progress in his conditioning level, so this is the smart thing to do and to find out for sure to find out why he was having the problems he was having.”
Mo Bamba Leaves NBA Campus, Out For Season
Magic center Mohamed Bamba has left the NBA’s Walt Disney World campus, the team said today (Twitter link). According to the Magic, Bamba is undergoing a “comprehensive post-coronavirus evaluation” on the advice of team doctors and performance staffers.
Bamba has been ruled out for the rest of the season, per the Magic.
Josh Robbins of The Athletic reported last week that Bamba contracted COVID-19 in June and that his recovery from the virus had been a slow process. The illness led to fatigue and muscle soreness and temporarily removed Bamba’s senses of smell and taste, according to Robbins. He has barely played at all this summer due to conditioning issues, last appearing in a game on August 2.
The former No. 6 overall pick spoke last week about wanting to continue working to get back to 100% and being ready to play when called upon. However, it appears the Magic determined that it’s in Bamba’s best interest to shut things down for the 2019/20 season and focus on getting healthy for next year.
Bamba, 22, appeared in 62 games during his second NBA season, averaging 5.4 PPG and 4.9 RPG in 14.2 minutes per contest as a backup behind starting center Nikola Vucevic. He’s under contract for $5.97MM next season, with a $7.57MM team option for 2021/22.
Bamba is the second Magic player who has been ruled out for the season since the restart began, as Jonathan Isaac tore his ACL earlier this month. The club has also been missing Aaron Gordon (hamstring) and Michael Carter-Williams (foot), who was said to be in a walking boot on Thursday. Additionally, Al-Farouq Aminu didn’t travel to Disney World with the team as he continues to recover from knee surgery.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Latest On Potential Offseason OTAs For Bottom Eight Teams
Discussions about organized team activities (OTAs) – including group workouts and scrimmages – for the eight clubs left out of the NBA’s 22-team Orlando restart are ongoing, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link), who says those talks continue to center on in-market workouts that would start in September.
Over the course of the summer, there have been rumblings that the NBA was considering setting up a second bubble in Chicago for its bottom eight teams to conduct group workouts and scrimmages. The league was also said to be exploring the idea of bringing those eight clubs to the first bubble at Walt Disney World once several of the teams involved in the restart are eliminated.
However, the most likely outcome is a scenario reported by The Charlotte Observer last month, which would allow the Warriors, Timberwolves, Cavaliers, Hawks, Pistons, Knicks, Bulls, and Hornets to conduct offseason workouts for about three weeks in their respective home markets and facilities. No inter-squad scrimmages would take place in that scenario, but intra-squad scrimmages would be permitted.
According to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link), the NBA and NBPA are in serious talks about moving forward with that plan for September. It would look something like this, per Charania:
- One week of individual workouts
- Two weeks of group practices
- One hour of 5-on-5 play per day
- Daily coronavirus testing
Presumably, any team that has a player test positive for COVID-19 during that three-week period would have to at least temporarily shut down its facility in an effort to avoid a more significant outbreak.
Those workouts are also expected to be voluntary, which means that certain star players or other veterans, including players eligible for free agency, likely won’t participate. However, rebuilding teams like the Cavaliers, Hawks, and Timberwolves are eager to get their young players some organized offseason reps, since they’ll likely go at least nine months – or more – between regular season games.