The L.A Lakers are your NBA Champions! Time to go on a 4 month break and wait for the NBA season to begin in late October. Well, that would have happened if 2020 was not one of the weirdest years yet.

COVID-19 touched the NBA when All-Star center Rudy Gobert caught the disease. The NBA went on a four month hiatus and resumed play in late July in the “bubble.” There was a protest in the bubble after the shooting of Jacob Blake that lasted a few days.

The NBA season was finally over when the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Miami Heat in 6 games on Oct. 11.

The NBA season just ended when it usually starts. The draft is usually in June, same with free agency letting new members and draftees get set with their new teams for about four months. However, this NBA season is a lot different than the others, leading to changes. 

The NBA Draft recently took place on Nov. 18. Free agency was held around the same time. 

Now that we finally got the off season out the way, we can talk about when some basketball will finally start being played. 

The NBA season is set to start on Dec. 22 and the Christmas day schedule was just released. Some of our favorite teams will be playing on Christmas day such as the Lakers, Nets and Celtics.

The NBA does not want to have another late end so instead of an 82 game season they will have a 72 game season. The idea has been talked about before so this is the perfect time to test it out.

The season is set to end on May 16, 2021 and the playoffs will start after that. 

And yes, the NBA knows that COVID-19 has not just disappeared. Daily testing will take place to ensure the safety of all players, this system will continue until the end of the season. Any player who tests positive will have to quarantine for at least ten days. 

Instead of the all-star break being in February it will now take place from March 5-10. 

The NBA season is also testing a play-in tournament that will allow seeds from 10, nine, eight  and  seven from each conference to fight for playoff spots instead of the 8th seed automatically receiving it. 

The end of the playoffs should be near the end of July.

This NBA season will be a very weird one, and I can not wait for it to start! My only concern is the play-in tournament. The seven and eight seeds will play for the seventh seed, while the loser of that game will play the winner of the seeds nine and 10 game for the eighth seed. 

My problem with this is that one game can decide so much, the tenth seed will probably be a bad team while the eight will be a decent one. All that goes away if the 8th seed has just two bad games and loses. 

Their whole season is ruined and washed away thanks to two bad games, but the NBA has a special way of introducing new changes that I end up liking. We will see in May if I feel the same way. 

All in all, the NBA season will be weirder, shorter and maybe better? I just know I can’t wait.