By Ty Anderson, 985TheSportsHub.com
Crowning a champion in 2020 is likely going to force the NBA to significantly condense their 2020-21 schedule.
That’s the plan, according to Atlanta Hawks GM Travis Schlenk, anyway, who revealed the NBA’s thinking and desire to stay as close to their normal timeline during a conference call on Tuesday.
“They want to try to stay as close to the historical timing as possible,” Schlenk, who noted that the plan is to start next season on Dec. 1, said. “So I don’t think this is something you’ll see stick. They’ve talked to us on one of our GM calls that it might be a condensed schedule next year. More so than in the past. As you know, there’s been a big drive to avoid back-to-backs and certainly four in five nights, but we might find ourselves in a situation next year where it would be much more condensed.”
With the NBA Finals having the potential to go until Oct. 12 (and that’s assuming everything goes off without a problem), a Dec. 1 turnaround seems insanely quick. And getting the league’s event schedule back to “normal” for 2021-22, as noted by Schlenk, would require some seriously cramped scheduling. If you’re looking for silver linings here, the NBA isn’t that far removed from some insane scheduling, as the 2011 lockout forced the NBA into a 2011-12 season that featured 66 games in 123 days.
This could feature similar insanity, too, as the NBA would want and/or need to get their season wrapped up in time for their players to represent their country in the (rescheduled) 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
In the now, however, the NBA will remain focused on finishing their 2019-20 in Orlando’s Disney World bubble.