The NBA and National Basketball Players Association released a joint statement late Monday night announcing that the two sides had come to terms in principle on several critical issues regarding the 2020-21 season.
While the agreement is subject to ratification by the league’s Board of Governors, it is anticipated that the season will commence on Dec. 22 and will entail a 72-game schedule (team schedules will be announced at a future date), as was expected.
Among the new items agreed to is that free agent negotiations will begin on Nov. 20 at 6 p.m. ET, and signings can take place starting at 12:01 a.m. ET on Nov. 22.
There is not yet a date on lifting the moratorium in place on trades, but sources told both ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and the New York Times’ Marc Stein that it is expected to be lifted two or three days before the draft.
The salary cap ($109.1 million) and luxury tax line ($132.6M) will effectively remain the same for 2020-21 as they were for 2019-20. Subsequent seasons under the existing Collective Bargaining Agreement will see both the cap and tax lines increase by a minimum of 3% and a maximum of 10%.
Should there be more decreases in basketball related income (BRI), teams’ tax payments also will decrease by a proportional amount.
The two sides also reached a compromise on the escrow system used to balance out the BRI. Any salary reductions deemed necessary beyond the standard 10% escrow will be spread across this season and potentially the subsequent two, also. No salary reduction will exceed 20% in any season.
