Last season, the Los Angeles Lakers started training camp on Dec. 1, just 51 days after they lifted the Larry O’Brien Trophy at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando. That historically short turnaround took a heavy physical toll on the league as a whole, but the Lakers got the worst of it, which is ultimately the main reason they weren’t able to meet their expectation of repeating as champions.
The good news is that they’ll have much, much more time to prepare for next season. According to a report from Shams Charania of The Athletic, the 2021-22 NBA season will start on Oct.