The debuts of a long love story between Paris and the NBA has been delayed over the health crisis. As the NBA announced a new regular seasonal game in France and in Paris in 2021, the American League has confirmed the game will not take place in January 2021. The regular season calendar has been delayed because of coronavirus including "play offs" this summer or early 2020-2021 season postponed to December 22.
We remember the first regular seasonal NBA game abroad. It took place on Friday January 24, 2020 at 9 p.m. at the AccorHotels Arena. And the day before, BeIN Sports revealed the NBA planned to return from January 2021 to do the same thing.
This time, coronavirus got the better of the schedule: France is said to enter the third phase of lockdown exit strategy from January 20, 2021 while the United-States keeps on fighting against the third wave of the repidemic. Even without making an official announcement, it seems obvious, the NBA yet gave an answer when releasing the calendar of the next regular season.
"Even though we are disappointed the health conditions prevented us from hosting the game in Paris, more than ever, we remain committed into developing new ways of tightening our bonds with our French fans and their favorite teams" Ralph Rivera - head of the European branch of the American League - says. Furthermore, the directors says they are already "looking foward to working with our partners in order to make the upcoming season more exciting and playing games in France during the next seasons, when it will be safer to organize them" he concludes.
Anyway, the NBA calendar will be partially cut for the 2020-2021 season: the Tokyo Olympics 2020 being postponed to 2021 - because of the pandemic too - has been taken into account. Playoffs are expected to end almost at the same time as the Games to begin, naming July 23, 2021. If the vaccination campaign begins soon and has a dramatically positive impact, we can hope the NBA can come to Paris from 2022!
