Trade season is set to begin at noon, and longtime Boston Celtics rivals and NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers already have a deal lined up to move veteran guard Danny Green to the Oklahoma City Thunder for point guard Dennis Schöder, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The move will bolster the team’s playmaking depth and further solidify their odds of repeating while Boston and the rest of the league work behind the scenes to set up similar deals wherever prudent and possible.
Other points of importance relayed by Wojnarowski Sunday morning about the coming 2020-21 NBA season include keeping the league’s salary cap and luxury tax at $109.1 million and $132.6 million, respectively.
Trade season begins Monday afternoon, sources tell ESPN. Teams were informed the NBA’s moratorium will end at noon ET and deals can begin to be consummated.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 15, 2020
Wojnarowski also notes that the league and the Players Union wil both retain the right to terminate the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) at the end of the coming season, and the season after.
Both sides retain a mutual option for CBA termination in the 2022-23 season as well.
The ESPN analyst also outlined a series of important dates in the 2020-21 NBA season.
Tentative schedule
December 22: Opening night.
All-Star Break (minus an ASG): March 5-10
May 16: Regular season ends
May 17-to-21: Play-in tournament for 7-to-10 seeds.
May 22: First-round playoffs
June 7: Conference semifinals
June 22: Conference Finals
July 8-22: NBA Finals— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 15, 2020
They include the Dec. 22nd start date, an All-Star break from Mar. 5th to the 8th, a May 16th end to the regular season with the play-in tournament to start the day after and last until the 21st of May.
It also included a playoff schedule that would see the first round of the 2021 postseason begin on May 22nd, conference semifinals to begin June 7th, conference finals the 22nd of that month, and the NBA Finals to begin on July 8th, ending on the 22nd.
