Report: NBA sets trade and playoff waiver deadlines for 2020-21 season
The 2020-21 NBA season will be unlike any we’ve ever seen before, especially with the league seemingly making up its schedule as it goes along.
The league plans on announcing the first half of the regular season schedule this week but wants to maintain its ability to alter its plans in light of potential coronavirus outbreaks that could potentially cause games to have to be rescheduled.
So we’ll get the schedule, little by little, and we’ll get an All-Star break, though no All-Star game.
Nonetheless, there are some other important dates that the league had to figure out, and according to Shams Charania, the NBA has done just that.
The trade deadline for the 2020-21 season, pending approval from the league’s Board of Governors, will be March 25, 2021.
Similarly, the league’s playoff waiver deadline — the date by which a player has to be waived in order to be eligible to play in the postseason — will be April 9.
The NBA is targeting March 25 for its 2020-21 season trade deadline, pending Board approval, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @Stadium. The All-Star break is scheduled for March 5-10.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) December 3, 2020
Those dates, obviously, are traditionally earlier in the year, but since the season is beginning in December, it would make sense for the league to extend those, as well.
After a flurry of moves this past offseason, it’s possible that Sam Presti will take it easy on the trade front, but with scores of draft picks over the next seven years, the Thunder are likely to be a highly-coveted trade partner.
