It has been 33 days since the Los Angeles Lakers claimed the Larry O'Brien Trophy and the 2019-20 NBA season ended. In a mere 18 days, training camps for the 2020-21 season will begin.
The league knows when it will hold the draft (Wednesday), start free agency (Nov. 20), open camps (Dec. 1) and begin the regular season (Dec. 22). The salary cap and luxury-tax lines for the season have been set. Outside of that, little is known at this point about how things will work this season, which has led to frustration around the league.
"I'd love to be able to tell you something, but I don't know anything," one Western Conference executive told ESPN. "I find out everything from the media."
Multiple executives said they feel out of the loop as the league tries to adjust its rules and offseason calendar on the fly to begin the season before Christmas in an attempt to preserve between $500 million and $1 billion in revenue.
"We know it's hard, and they're working on a lot of details," one team president said. "They are listening to a lot of feedback from all of us. But at times we feel like we're in the dark and that can get frustrating."
