According to a new report by ESPN, the NBA is considering major changes to the league calendar, including a reseeding of the four conference finalists, a post-season play-in tournament, a 30-team in-season tournament and a shortening of the regular season to 78 games.
“Discussions are progressing with hopes of bringing a vote to the April meeting of the league’s board of governors that would introduce some — if not all — of these proposals into the NBA’s 75th anniversary season of 2021-22,” ESPN reports, citing league sources.
Of course, the NBA can’t implement these changes without the agreement of the Players Association, and commissioner Adam Silver and NBPA executive director Michele Roberts have reportedly been leading those talks. Both sides are reportedly leaning towards a post-Thanksgiving tournament window that would extend into mid-December.
There are proposals that would compensate players and coaches for winning the tournament. The proposal for the play-in is apparently two four-team tournaments featuring the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth seeds in each conference. The seventh and eighth seeds would play each other, with the winner of that game earning the seventh playoff spot and the loser playing the winner of the 9-vs.-10 game for the final playoff spot. As one “high-ranking source” told ESPN, “So far there’s been no real pushback.”
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