When Does the 2022 NBA Season Start?

The NBA season is scheduled to start on December 1, 2021 and end on June 26, 2022.

Introduction

The 2022 NBA season is set to begin on October 19, 2022. The regular season will conclude on April 10, 2023, with the playoffs set to begin the following week. The NBA Finals are scheduled to start on June 2 and will end no later than June 19.

The NBA’s Offseason

During the NBA’s offseason, teams can sign free agents, make trades, and hold draft pick registrations. The offseason period lasts from the end of the NBA Finals until the start of training camp for the next season.

This year, the offseason began on October 12th, 2020, immediately after the conclusion of the 2020 NBA Finals. The 2021 season is tentatively scheduled to begin on December 1st, 2021.

The NBA’s Regular Season

The NBA regular season typically starts in the last week of October. The 2021-2022 season is scheduled to start on Tuesday, October 25th. However, the exact date and schedule has yet to be announced.

The regular season consists of 82 games, which are played over a span of about six months. Usually, each team plays every other team in their conference at least four times and every team in the other conference at least twice. This schedule can be tweaked slightly from year to year in order to ensure that the best match-ups are shown on television.

After the regular season ends, the 16 teams with the best records (eight from each conference) go on to compete in the NBA Playoffs. The playoffs are a single-elimination tournament where each round is played until one team emerges victorious. The Finals is the last round of the playoffs and pits the winner of the Western Conference against the winner of the Eastern Conference.

The NBA’s Playoffs

The 2022 NBA Playoffs will begin on Saturday, April 16 and Sunday, April 17. The playoffs will end on Sunday, June 26, with the NBA Finals Game 7 (if necessary).

The NBA’s Finals

The NBA Finals are the championship series of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Eastern and Western conference champions play a best-of-seven game series to determine the league champion. The team that wins the series is awarded the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy, which replaced the Walter A. Brown Trophy in 1983.

The current champions are the Los Angeles Lakers, who defeated the Miami Heat in six games in 2020. The Lakers have won a record-tying 17 NBA Finals, while also making 32 appearances overall, more than any other team. The Boston Celtics have appeared in 21 NBA Finals, winning a record-setting 18 times. Other franchises with multiple appearances include the Golden State Warriors (11), Detroit Pistons (7), Milwaukee Bucks (4), and Seattle SuperSonics/Oklahoma City Thunder (4). Eight of those appearances occurred when Divisional playoff format was used during 1953–1966 and 1974–1975; out of those, four times a division winner was upset by a team with a worse regular season record in their Conference Semifinal matchup (1965 Eastern Division Semifinals between Baltimore Bullets and Philadelphia 76ers, 1966 Eastern Division Semifinals between Chicago Bulls and Baltimore Bullets—who had previously upset them during regular season—1974 Eastern Conference Semifinals between New York Knicks and Boston Celtics—who had previously lost to them during regular season—and 1975 Eastern Conference Semifinals between Chicago Bulls and Washington Bullets).

The 2020 finals were originally scheduled to begin on June 4 and end no later than June 21; however, due to the coronavirus pandemic, they were instead played inside the so-called “bubble” at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida from August 30 to September 13—making it the first NBA finals held outside of June. Game 1 of the 2020 Finals was played on September 30, making it the latest start to an NBA season.

Conclusion

It is unclear when the 2022 NBA season will start. The NBA has not released any official information regarding the matter. However, based on past seasons, it is safe to assume that the season will start in late October or early November.