2020 NBA Draft confirmed for October 16

The 2020 NBA Draft was supposedly scheduled for June 25, but the league suspended all games on March 11 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now that the resumption of the season is more or less set, the NBA draft has been rescheduled for October 16, according to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.

The NBA Draft is one of the most important days for the league. It's when new basketball players who wish to join the league are chosen one-by-one by NBA teams that interest them. Assuming they are eligible under league regulations, most players drafted by NBA teams receive a contract.

Promising young ballers hope to get drafted and be given an opportunity to become basketball stars. Meanwhile, NBA teams are looking to find young talent to beef up their roster and win championships.

NBA teams pick eligible draftees from a list provided by the league. The order of the draft is determined by the draft lottery based on each team's performance in the previous regular season. This is where it gets tricky. With the games suspended, the draft order is not currently set.

But now that the league is set to resume and will hopefully finish by the second week of October, that would give a short window to complete the lottery, do the draft, sign free agents, and start the 2020-2021 season. Initially, the 2020-2021 season was set to begin on October 22. But given the circumstances, that's not likely the case.

According to NBA.com, aspiring players can submit their draft application anytime, and the deadline for submission is on August 17. That leaves only two months for teams to do a scouting report on eligible players. The case is even harder for playoff teams because top players are usually selected by the 14 teams that didn't qualify for the playoffs.

In the same memo, the NBA also clarified the rules for players who wish to opt-out of the remaining games for various reasons. While the league previously stated that there would be no punishment for players who chose to opt-out, the new memo said that players would lose 1.1% of their salary for every game missed. The deduction is capped at a maximum of 14 games or 15.1%.

Teams can also sign free agents for rest-of-the-season contracts until June 30.