OKC Thunder: A later season start benefits development of young stars

A later 2020-21 season start benefits the OKC Thunder youngsters to work on growth and allows Sam Presti time to tweak the roster.

Back on March 11th, the 2019-20 season was put on hold when the OKC Thunder and Utah Jazz game was postponed. The subsequent events following Rudy Gobert testing positive for COVID-19 witnessed the league suspend activity for close to four months.

Eventually, squads ascended on ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando in what became known as the Disney Bubble. The league brought in 22 teams to restart the season including a training camp, eight seeding games, the first-ever play in for the final playoff berth in the West, and then progressed to the postseason.

The 16 teams who began the playoffs have been narrowed to four as the conference finals are underway and throughout the experience, the bubble has consistently produced negative COVID-19 tests. That said, with the WNBA producing some uncertain tests it’s resulted in a postponement which amplifies how quickly the entire bubble could’ve burst.

OKC Thunder will have ample time to prepare for the 2020-21 season

With that knowledge, it’s no wonder the NBA and NBPA are cautiously approaching when to start the 2020-21 season.

The league has already moved the NBA Draft back to November 18th and it seems likely the season which originally was slated to begin December 1st, will start no sooner than Christmas  (per Shams Charania) with a good chance it gets pushed into the New Year.

In fact, the Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor speculates the start date could be shifted as late as March to allow for a vaccine and thus allow for fans to be able to attend games and players to be safe.

At this stage, each of the big events typically scheduled in June (Draft), July (Free Agency Moratorium), and September/October (Training Camp/Preseason) will start much later in the calendar.

Even the initial dates suggested aren’t set in stone as the league will keep each in a state of fluidity in order to track the pandemic as there is another wave expected sometime in the fall or winter.

The goal has always been to try to schedule the season to allow for fans to be able to return to arenas since, in-arena, fan-based revenue accounts for 41 percent of the total revenue.

For the moment the season start date is set for Christmas Day but again, that could be shifted to early in the New Year or even later.

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What this means for Sam Presti and the OKC Thunder is they’ll have ample time to prepare for the coming season. More importantly, given the franchise is set to make some changes the extended layoff allows for additional time to make trades and tweaks to the roster.

More importantly, for clubs like the OKC Thunder who are set on ‘repositioning’ extra time allows for the youngsters to work with coaches and improve their games.

The downside is there won’t be live matches, the upside is simple – just imagine the improvements Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luguentz Dort, and Darius Bazley can make with so much time to grow their games.

When the trio played in the Orlando bubble it was clear each added new elements to their games while Dort and Bazley specifically made offensive improvements.