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The NBA players tentatively agree to start the season on Dec. 22, according to report

Next season will start before Christmas. It will also happen right during a major wave of the coronavirus.

By Albert Lee
San Antonio Spurs v Dallas Mavericks
The NBA will be back in December.
Photo by Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images

On Thursday, the NBPA players union’s team representatives tentatively agreed to a proposal by the NBA to start the 2020-21 season on Dec. 22, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. As noted previously, the season will be 72 games long and the playoffs will end before July for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.

There are still some more hurdles to cross, most notably players’ salary withholdings, due to financial losses stemming from the coronavirus. But for now, it appears that we will have a more traditional length NBA season that starts in the winter.

The next important date for the NBA is on Nov. 18 for the draft. In the following days, teams will be allowed to make trades and sign free agents.

I’ll have more on some of the things we’ll likely see this season later today.