The NBA has informed its 30 teams that it will continue to explore possible changes to the league’s schedule but no longer plans to hold a vote on those changes at this spring’s Board of Governors meeting, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Last month, the NBA sent a memo to its teams detailing proposed schedule changes for the 2021-22 season, including an in-season tournament, a postseason play-in tournament for the seventh and eighth seeds in each conference, and the reseeding of the conference finalists — the league was later said to be reconsidering its idea to reseed the final four teams.
The initial plan was to fine-tune those proposals in the hopes of taking a formal vote at April’s Board of Governors meeting. Instead, it appears the NBA will be a little more patient with the process. That doesn’t mean the proposed tournaments won’t eventually happen, though, perhaps still even as early as the 2021-22 season. An April vote would have given teams more time to prepare, but Wojnarowski reports that the league hasn’t ruled out implementing schedule changes for 2021-22.
According to Wojnarowski, the NBA has been working closely with teams, the players’ union and stakeholders, and it wants to continue studying how its ideas could be best implemented and monetized over the long run.
Details like broadcasting rights, arena scheduling, incentives and timing all need to be worked out, making it a complicated process, as Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer points out. The league hopes to give owners an update at April’s meeting, Woj adds.
In order to institute the proposed schedule changes, the NBA would need 23 of 30 teams to vote in favor of them. Howard Beck of Bleacher Report notes that commissioner Adam Silver isn’t expected to move forward with a formal vote unless he’s confident he has enough support to approve the changes.
