Shams: NBA to target Mar. 25 for trade deadline, Mar. 10-15 for ASW

Justin Quinn
·2 min read
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The NBA will target March 25th for the trade deadline of the 2020-21 season’s calendar, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, pending approval by the league’s board of governors.

The date has particular significance for the Boston Celtics now that they have a massive, $28.5 million trade exception — the NBA’s largest in its seven-decade history — after dealing veteran forward Gordon Hayward to the Charlotte Hornets in November.

While the utility of the exception will extend into the early days of the 2021-22 season, the team’s best shot at finding the sort of talent it wants on its roster for a deep playoff run may be at their peak as teams drop out of the playoff hunt later in the season.

Other important dates relayed by Charania under consideration by the league include holding the All-Star break between March 10 and 15, and a plan to set the latest date a player can be waived while remaining eligible to play in the 2020 NBA Playoffs on April 9.

That will leave teams more than a month to acclimate any late editions to their roster with the regular season set to end on May 16 and the NBA’s second-ever play-in tourney slated to begin two days afterwards.

The postseason is anticipated to run from May 22 to July 22, assuming things go as smoothly as they did in the Disney restart — which may be asking for a lot, given the so-called ‘bubble’ it was held in.

Fingers crossed.

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