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Silver and Roberts met on Sunday afternoon to set a foundation for talks, and both left the meeting optimistic about reaching agreement on issues to keep the NBA moving forward.

“I think we’re going to get to a mutually acceptable result, but it’s going to take time,” Roberts told The Athletic. “We haven’t done our BRI (basketball related income) audits. We haven’t set a salary cap, we haven’t set a tax.”

Here is where the NBPA stands on several topics with the NBA, Roberts tells The Athletic:

— January and February are realistic start times for the 2020-21 season: “The latter part of January, February makes sense. If it’s later than that, if we have a terrible winter because the virus decides to reassert herself, that’s fine. The absolute earliest would be January, and that’s doable.” The NBA and NBPA both have shared goals: An 82-game season, in-market play, reduced travel and potentially a set amount of fans.

— Free agency is expected to be no later than Dec. 1 — and the salary cap and tax numbers should not dip much lower than the current projections: “We can’t go much beyond (Dec. 1) for (free agency). We had a projected BRI, which I think teams appropriately planned for. I don’t think we can deviate much from where we projected the cap to be ($115 million, latest projection). It may not reflect what people think is the likely BRI, but since I’m of the view this game is not dead and it will rebound, we can do some things with the cap to allow for a free market and not completely destroy what the teams were expecting the cap to be as they were planning ahead. Frankly, I think that’s going to be one of the easier negotiations, figuring out a cap.”

The NBA will provide eight weeks notice ahead of when it plans to start the 20-21 season.

If the current hope is to start on January 18th, which is Martin Luther King Day, the NBA would have to commit to this date by November 23rd.

The NBA's goal for the 20-21 season is to maximize the potential number of games played safely in front of paying customers in arenas.

An 82-game regular season schedule normally takes 177 days to complete compared to 170 two years ago. The league could have each team play approximately four games per week and complete the regular season in approximately 155 days. The NBA wants to accomplish this while reducing travel and reducing potential COVID-19 infection exposure.

When the NBA holds its 2020 draft next month, there will be no parade of top picks, dressed in their best (and occasionally most outrageous) suits, shaking hands with commissioner Adam Silver when their names are called.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Nov. 18 event will originate from the ESPN studios in Bristol, Connecticut, and be conducted virtually.

Silver and deputy commissioner Mark Tatum will still be on hand to announce the selections for the first and second rounds, but the players will only appear via a video link.

Prior to the Board of Governors meeting on Friday, the NBA's finance committee met last Monday and came to a conclusion that the league needed to start the season in December to maximize their revenues for the 20-21 season.

"The owners' finance committee, there's a group of owners who make up the finance committee, had a meeting and in that meeting they looked at everything and decided 'You know what? We need to play sooner rather than later,'" said Brian Windhorst on his podcast. 

"By Friday, by the time the full Board of Governors meeting came together, it was pretty much decided it was going to be Christmas or even sooner.

"They have to work out a deal with the players over the next few days, but it's going to probably be a late December restart for the NBA, which is not something even Adam Silver was believing three weeks ago."

The league projects that starting the season in December will result in an additional $500 million in revenue than they otherwise would lose by starting later. 

BRIAN WINDHORST/ESPN


The NBA and NBPA are widely expected to agree to revised collective bargaining agreement this week, which is their deadline to start the season by mid-December.

"I don't really think the players have much of a leveraging point here," said Brian Windhorst on his podcast. "They're probably going to have to agree to this.

"In talking to people on the league side this past week, they didn't act like getting the players to agree was going to be that big of a stumbling block. I'm sure some people are going to be upset, but I'm not sure what they can do about it."

The start of the season will take place 72 days after Game 6 of The Finals featuring the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat.

BRIAN WINDHORST/ESPN