2020-2021 Season News and Notes

[JayBirdHawk]

 

Division games will make for some interesting games. Less travel, more rest.

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

[bird_dirt]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

Dang. Obi Toppin will be like 30 years old by then.

 

[ATLHawks3]

Nearly a year of not playing basketball... Just make it a Christmas Day opening night!

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

Quote

Silver and Roberts met on Sunday afternoon to set a foundation for talks, and both left the meeting optimistic about reaching agreement on issues to keep the NBA moving forward.

“I think we’re going to get to a mutually acceptable result, but it’s going to take time,” Roberts told The Athletic. “We haven’t done our BRI (basketball related income) audits. We haven’t set a salary cap, we haven’t set a tax.”

Here is where the NBPA stands on several topics with the NBA, Roberts tells The Athletic:

— January and February are realistic start times for the 2020-21 season: “The latter part of January, February makes sense. If it’s later than that, if we have a terrible winter because the virus decides to reassert herself, that’s fine. The absolute earliest would be January, and that’s doable.” The NBA and NBPA both have shared goals: An 82-game season, in-market play, reduced travel and potentially a set amount of fans.

— Free agency is expected to be no later than Dec. 1 — and the salary cap and tax numbers should not dip much lower than the current projections: “We can’t go much beyond (Dec. 1) for (free agency). We had a projected BRI, which I think teams appropriately planned for. I don’t think we can deviate much from where we projected the cap to be ($115 million, latest projection). It may not reflect what people think is the likely BRI, but since I’m of the view this game is not dead and it will rebound, we can do some things with the cap to allow for a free market and not completely destroy what the teams were expecting the cap to be as they were planning ahead. Frankly, I think that’s going to be one of the easier negotiations, figuring out a cap.”

 

[JayBirdHawk]

2021 Season StartUp....

Quote

The NBA will provide eight weeks notice ahead of when it plans to start the 20-21 season.

If the current hope is to start on January 18th, which is Martin Luther King Day, the NBA would have to commit to this date by November 23rd.

The NBA's goal for the 20-21 season is to maximize the potential number of games played safely in front of paying customers in arenas.

An 82-game regular season schedule normally takes 177 days to complete compared to 170 two years ago. The league could have each team play approximately four games per week and complete the regular season in approximately 155 days. The NBA wants to accomplish this while reducing travel and reducing potential COVID-19 infection exposure.

JOHN HOLLINGER/THE ATHLETIC

 

[macdaddy]

4 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

2021 Season StartUp....

 

They really need to shorten the season.  

 

[AHF]

They will need some mechanism to account for all the lost revenue.  Just keeping the cap at 115M means you have to take it out of future years or the owners agree to eat that loss.  Color me skeptical that the latter will be something the owners embrace.

[lethalweapon3]

How does one start out at 24th out of 30 teams yet still be a clear-cut playoff contender? SI's Michael Shapiro puts six Leastern Conference teams below the Hawks (Magic sit precariously at "No. 20") in its way-too-early "NBA Power Rankings".

https://www.si.com/nba/2020/10/13/nba-power-rankings-2021-lakers-heat-clippers

 

Quote

 

24. Atlanta Hawks

The Hawks have a fair amount of talent after back-to-back lottery appearances, but this team isn’t going anywhere if they remain an absolute disaster on the defensive end. Perhaps Clint Capela can turn the tide. The former Rockets center isn’t exactly an All-Defense honoree, but he’s a legitimate 7’0” with plenty of shot-blocking prowess. Trae Young should feast in the pick-and-roll alongside Capela, and the defense should trend closer to No. 20 than the league’s worst mark. If Capela is healthy, he could make a major impact in Year 3 of the Lloyd Pierce era.

 

 

 

~lw3

[Gray Mule]

Hawks have been so bad for so long that those "talkin heads" can't bring themselves to believe anything good can come out of Atlanta.

All they see is the addition of Capela.  We, who really follow this team, know better.  No point of naming things that are better here.  We all know.

Really, we are better being the Rodney Dangerfield of the NBA.  Exceeding expectations is a great outcome.  The closer to the bottom they place the Hawks, the easier it is to climb above where they place us.  We're going to be pretty good!  Don't tell any one !!

[bleachkit]

On 10/13/2020 at 11:16 AM, AHF said:

They will need some mechanism to account for all the lost revenue.  Just keeping the cap at 115M means you have to take it out of future years or the owners agree to eat that loss.  Color me skeptical that the latter will be something the owners embrace.

Things could get ugly, but in the end the owners will probably take the biggest hit. It's a player's league in the end.

[JayBirdHawk]

Season to start on MLK day?

This is the new target open date for the league, after having already pushed back from earlier soft targets of Dec. 1 and Dec. 25. Subjectively, I think this one has a better chance to stick. For starters, I’ve heard people in the league talking about a potential MLK date for a while, even as the “official” word was targeting December.

 

– via John Hollinger @ The Athletic

[lethalweapon3]

What Happens Here, Stays Without Labissiere.

~lw3

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

[AHF]

19 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

The pressure is more on the NBPA here, IMO.  If neither side terminates, then the cap will be adjusted to account for all the lost revenue so the owners will get their savings.  If the NBPA terminates over this issue, that risks a big black eye without holding a ton of bargaining leverage (much less than in normal negotiations given the financial losses suffered this year due to Covid and China).  The best solution for them is agreeing to a more moderate cut with the owners.

[JayBirdHawk]

The NBA will meet with its television partners, ESPN and Turner, this week to decide on a start date for the 20-21 season.

The consensus currently is to start the season "sooner rather than later" in order to keep the 21-22 season on a more normal calendar. The league has considered starting in February or March in order to maximize the possibility of getting fans back into arenas for game day revenue. 

"There's a lot of indication that the NBA might start a lot sooner than anybody thought," said Bill Simmons. "I think the thinking is, I mean Christmas would be the ideal, but I don't think they could pull it together that fast. But if you do it by Martin Luther King weekend range. Somewhere between Christmas and Martin Luther King weekend. 

"The thinking is this next season is screwed now. Because fans aren't going to be back until god only knows? April? May? Who knows? But they have to preserve the season after. The later they wait to start this season, the more it [expletive] with the next season.

"So the move, which I think they're starting to talk themselves into, and I know they have talks with the networks this week... But you bite the bullet, you start it sooner than later. You go like 72 games, 70 games, something like that. Get rid of the All-Star break..."

Simmons suggested the NBA will try to condense the schedule with how it sends teams on road trips and that they would end the season by mid-July.

"The thing that they learned is nobody watches television in August. Regardless of whether there's a pandemic or not. The ratings are just not going to be as good. September was a catastrophe going against football. And then the election every four years, things like that. You know what really worked? Having the Finals in June and then the offseason in July and you own those two months. They want to get back to that, or some version of that. To do that, you have to start the next season sooner than later.

"But I was surprised because I thought it wasn't going to start until March or April. But now it sounds like it's going to be sooner."

BILL SIMMONS/THE RINGER

[ATLHawks3]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

The NBA will meet with its television partners, ESPN and Turner, this week to decide on a start date for the 20-21 season.

The consensus currently is to start the season "sooner rather than later" in order to keep the 21-22 season on a more normal calendar. The league has considered starting in February or March in order to maximize the possibility of getting fans back into arenas for game day revenue. 

"There's a lot of indication that the NBA might start a lot sooner than anybody thought," said Bill Simmons. "I think the thinking is, I mean Christmas would be the ideal, but I don't think they could pull it together that fast. But if you do it by Martin Luther King weekend range. Somewhere between Christmas and Martin Luther King weekend. 

"The thinking is this next season is screwed now. Because fans aren't going to be back until god only knows? April? May? Who knows? But they have to preserve the season after. The later they wait to start this season, the more it [expletive] with the next season.

"So the move, which I think they're starting to talk themselves into, and I know they have talks with the networks this week... But you bite the bullet, you start it sooner than later. You go like 72 games, 70 games, something like that. Get rid of the All-Star break..."

Simmons suggested the NBA will try to condense the schedule with how it sends teams on road trips and that they would end the season by mid-July.

"The thing that they learned is nobody watches television in August. Regardless of whether there's a pandemic or not. The ratings are just not going to be as good. September was a catastrophe going against football. And then the election every four years, things like that. You know what really worked? Having the Finals in June and then the offseason in July and you own those two months. They want to get back to that, or some version of that. To do that, you have to start the next season sooner than later.

"But I was surprised because I thought it wasn't going to start until March or April. But now it sounds like it's going to be sooner."

BILL SIMMONS/THE RINGER

I'm in favor for a New Years' Day Opener.

[RedDawg#8]

4 hours ago, ATLHawks3 said:

I'm in favor for a New Years' Day Opener.

100% agree.

But if Xmas is off the table I cant Imagine them being ready a week later. Im preparing mentally for it to be MLK Day, and if it happens sooner, awesome. This has been the longest offseason ever and I just cant take any more disappointment due to setbacks.