Philadelphia 76ers: When Will NBA Free Agency Start?

With the 2020 NBA Finals beginning to wind down, the Philadelphia 76ers are looking forward to officially starting the offseason. When the 2019-2020 NBA season restarted back in July, the league had plans to ramp up key offseason events just days after the season concludes with the NBA Draft coming on October 15, with free agency following a few days later.

However, the NBA pushed back on the date. Considering the COVID-19 pandemic still limits activities, most NBA teams needed more time to interview incoming prospects and have them partake in workouts either virtually or in-person. To make that happen, Adam Silver and the league's decision-makers needed to postpone the draft and free agency for the second time this year.

Now, the NBA plans to have teams draft on November 18, but this time around, free agency isn't set to follow a few days after. At the moment, the offseason signing period doesn't have a tentative date. Still, at least it's now known free agency should begin before December 1, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic.

"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)."

This offseason for the Sixers will be relatively different compared to last year's. In 2019, the Sixers had a lot of cap space to sign players such as Tobias Harris, Ben Simmons, and Al Horford to rather large deals. Now that those guys are on the books, the 76ers can't accomplish much in free agency. Instead, they will have to rely on adding prospects through the draft and the trade market.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on Twitter: @JGrasso_

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