Regardless of what ends up happening with the NBA’s proposed bubble league to finish out the 2019-20 campaign, the league is going to have a draft and free agency at some point. The timelines have, of course, been moved around due to the league’s COVID-19 hiatus, and on Saturday, we got a sense of when these two major offseason events will occur.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the 2020 NBA Draft will take place on October 16. This would fall three days after the reported last day that the NBA season could conclude, should the Finals go a full seven games.
Source: NBA Draft will be on October 16, with early entry deadline on August 17.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 20, 2020
As Jonathan Givony of ESPN noted, that date includes a nugget regarding when college and international players have to make up their minds on staying in the draft or returning to school/their club.
A bit of a bombshell here. What this means is that college and international players who had previously elected NOT to enter the 2020 NBA draft now have until August 17th to revisit those decisions and potentially enter now. News story coming. https://t.co/2W4wn1j37M
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) June 20, 2020
The turnaround time for teams to focus exclusively on free agency would end up being quick. Wojnarowski reports that the league’s free agency period would kick off on October 18, and keeping in line with a change that went into effect last year, the window for deals to be agreed to would open at 6 p.m. EST.
Free agency negotiations will start at 6 PM on October 18, per sources. (Not a minute sooner, or that would be tampering, of course) https://t.co/gFsfDA0BGf
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 20, 2020
There are still a number of questions about how the timeline will work for the NBA over the coming months, even beyond the fact that Florida looks ripe for being the United States’ next COVID hotspot right before teams are preparing to get situated at Disney and the questions about when the season can start in response to that. Things like a start date for next season and a potential “Summer League,” for instance, are still up in the air. But now, we know when we’ll see the two biggest days on the NBA’s offseason calendar.