The NBA is trying to figure out exactly how to wrap up its regular season and postseason while in the midst of a global pandemic. The league hasn’t held any games since March 11, when Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, and in the weeks since, fans have wondered when it will be safe for games to resume in some capacity, whether it be in home arenas without fans or in one centralized location.
Even if getting the regular season back is not feasible, perhaps the league could dive right into the postseason, even if LeBron James has stressed that is not an ideal outcome. And while putting a timeline on all of this is next to impossible, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN brought word of the end date the league hopes to have on this season.
Wojnarowski appeared on Get Up and expressed that while it’s not a hard and fast end date for the year, the NBA wants to have everything wrapped up by Labor Day weekend, although it would be willing to go a little beyond that if need be.
“They would like to have a champion crowned by Labor Day weekend.”@wojespn on a potential timeline for the NBA to finish its season. pic.twitter.com/gyZovhdGbQ
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) April 7, 2020
Wojnarowski also raised the point that going that far into the calendar wouldn’t just impact the end of the 2019-20 campaign, saying “that’s still almost likelier, I think almost certain, if you push it that far, that you are delaying the start of next season.” This is a point that Brian Windhorst of ESPN had also raised when he mentioned the factors the league is weighing as it considers calling this year altogether.