Commissioner Adam Silver’s new idea of starting the NBA season before Christmas — on Dec. 22 — does no favors to teams like the Knicks who haven’t played since March 11, possess a new head coach and plan to have a refurbished roster.
“This is going to favor teams with stable rosters,” one NBA source said.
Silver’s pivot at last week’s Board of Governor’s meeting was stunning. Silver changed up from recently eyeing either a January, February (after the Super Bowl) or even March 1 commencement.
Silver’s about-face is a strong reaction to the horrendous TV ratings for the late-summer restart/October Finals, according to sources.
It’s also the clearest admission that stuffing fans inside indoor arenas before the playoffs has become unrealistic considering the COVID-19 spike this month.
The change of heart allows the NBA to showcase its league on the year’s most important day for its TV partners – Christmas. And it gives Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau little time to get organized as training camps will have to start around Dec. 1.
“It’s interesting Silver talked behind the scenes about waiting until a March time-frame if it meant getting a vaccine,” one NBA insider said. “That’s until the finance committee showed him the numbers.”
One NBA executive said, “It’s a pure cash play for Christmas ratings.”
The chances of fans cheering the Knicks on next season under the Garden’s famous pinwheeled ceiling looks bleaker.
If training camp begins Dec. 1, it would awkwardly bump into free agency, which would start a few days after the Nov. 18 draft. Of their 15-man roster, the Knicks have only seven players guaranteed under contract for next season.
Bobby Portis, Elfrid Payton, Taj Gibson, Wayne Ellington, Theo Pinson and Reggie Bullock either have a team option or non-guaranteed deals that have to soon be enforced for next season. Damyean Dotson and Mo Harkless are outright free agents. Only Bullock has a strong chance of returning.
The Knicks will have three draft picks on Nov. 18, including a lottery pick at No. 8. Those rookies will come into camp with no summer-league action and possibly not even more than one preseason game under their belts.
If the Knicks don’t bring back any of the team-option/non-guaranteed guys, they will have $48 million in cap room if the NBA decides to use last year’s number of $109 million because of revenue losses.
Without a legitimate max guy available that the Knicks love other than Anthony Davis, who will re-sign with the Lakers, a slew of Knicks free-agent signees will have little adjustment period if there’s just one preseason contest.
Sources indicate clarity on the plan will emerge later this week.
The latest discussion calls for 72 games in home arenas instead of the full-boat 82 – a number obvious in its intent. As The Post reported first last spring, the NBA wanted to play more regular-season games for its Orlando bubble restart to get to the 72-game mark, satisfying contracts for regional networks.
The move backfired. If the league went straight to the playoffs, the Finals would have been played in September and would have avoided competing against the MLB playoffs.
Now Silver’s clear aim is to get back to a normal situation quickly with The Finals in mid-June and the 2021-22 season starting on time. TV officials told The Post August ratings are annually 30-percent lower during normal times.
“The priority is getting back to the October-to-June format for 2021-22,” one industry source said. “They found out the hard way not enough people watch TV in the summer. The virus and real-life struggles obscure the reality that sports on TV in the summer don’t generate enough viewers.”
Some league executives believe a different holiday opener would be more appropriate. That would be MLK Day on Jan. 18 — as The Post has reported — given the climate of the times.
The NBA already has figured out how to start late and finish on time in June. The league staged 66 games after the 2011 lockout, starting on Christmas and got to the Finals by late June.
In the spring, Silver and his owners were looking at a Dec. 1 start to the 2020-21 season, but the Players Association objected on the grounds it was too soon.
That could still be the case if the NBA moves forward on a Christmas plan to inject life into its worrisome TV deal.
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