NBA postpones draft lottery, draft combine indefinitely

An overall view of the stage prepared for the NBA Draft Lottery that is scheduled to happen on May 14, 2019 at the Chicago Hilton in Chicago, Illinois. /VCG

Neither the draft lottery nor the draft combine is going to happen in May, thanks to the season suspension caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, announced the NBA on Friday.

"The NBA today announced the postponement of NBA Draft Lottery 2020 and NBA Draft Combine 2020, both scheduled to take place later this month in Chicago," said the league in a statement. "More information on each event will be shared at a later date as the NBA continues to closely monitor the coronavirus pandemic and consult with infectious disease specialists, public health experts and government officials."

According to the original schedule, the lottery and combine were supposed to happen on May 19 and May 19-24 respectively, both in Chicago. The lottery was prepared for the 14 teams that failed to make the playoffs and, considering that the 2019-20 season is not over yet, there's no way to tell who they are and what their final rankings would have been.

A general view of the court prepared for the NBA Draft Combine that is scheduled to happen on May 16, 2019 at the Quest MultiSport Complex in Chicago, Illinois. /VCG

As for the combine draft, it's more like a commodities fair to which about 70 players are invited by the league. Some of them will conduct practice sessions and games for teams to observe them while others skip all that to do exclusive interviews with specific teams. Shortly speaking, the combine is an important opportunity for teams to learn more about the promising young men before the draft.

By the way, the 2020 NBA Draft was scheduled to take place on June 25. Though it has not been delayed yet, judging by the current situation, that's only a matter of time.

According to ESPN, the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and the NBA board of governors also discussed postponing the beginning of the 2020-21 season to December. "If you start in December, that doesn't mean the people are coming back in December, but maybe they're back by March," said one of the governors to ESPN.

The 2019-20 regular season has been suspended since mid-March and there's no tell when it will resume. Nonetheless, considering that there are still 259 games left, not to mention the playoffs, the delaying of next season seems inevitable.