NBA sets July 29 for its draft, while also determining schedule for accompanying combine, lottery

The NBA announced Monday that this year’s NBA Draft will be held on July 29, while the draft lottery will be on June 22 and the draft combine will take place from June 21-27, as the league adjusts to its temporary new schedule due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Typically, the NBA holds its lottery and combine in mid-May, it’s draft in late June and begins free agency on July 1. But because the schedule has been pushed back due to the pandemic, with the season starting in late December, as opposed to mid-October, and the season lasting 72 games instead of the typical 82-game slate, everything that been pushed back by roughly a month.

All three events will be aired on ESPN, while the first round of the NBA Draft will also air on ABC.

With the draft schedule now in place, the contours of the next few months around the league are beginning to take shape. The regular season ends on May 16, and will be followed by the league’s first-ever play-in tournament, featuring the teams from 7th-10th in both the Eastern and Western Conferences playing for the final two spots in the postseason. The playoffs will then run into July – which will see NBA Finals played in July for the first time.

Now that the draft has been scheduled for late July, it would seem to indicate free agency could begin as soon as that weekend. And NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has previously indicated that the league would like to hold some version of its annual Summer League to allow the players selected in the draft a chance to acclimate to their new teams ahead of the upcoming season.

Silver has also said the NBA plans to get back onto its old schedule, meaning training camp will begin in late September and the season will start in mid-October.