The 2024–25 NBA season is the upcoming 79th season of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The regular season will begin on October 22, 2024 and end on April 13, 2025.[1] The NBA plans to stage an in-season tournament for the second consecutive year, now branded as the Emirates NBA Cup.[2] The 2025 NBA All-Star Game is scheduled for February 16, 2025, at Chase Center in San Francisco.[3] The play-in tournament is then scheduled to be played on April 15–18, 2025, followed by the playoffs on the next day, and concluding with the NBA Finals in June.
On July 2, 2024, Kemba Walker announced his retirement from professional basketball.[4] He joined the Hornets as a player enhancement coach the next day.[4][5]
On August 15, 2024, Joe Harris retired from professional basketball.[8]
On September 26, 2024, Derrick Rose retired from professional basketball.[9]
On September 29, 2024, AJ Griffin announced his retirement from professional basketball to pursue a career in ministry.[10]
On October 2, 2024, Ish Smith was hired as a pro scout for the Washington Wizards, thus ending his career. Smith played for a record 13 NBA franchises in his 14 years in the NBA.[11]
The majority of the regular season was released on August 15, with those group play games counting as part of the in-season tournament, now branded as the NBA Cup, announced two days earlier on August 13. The two games that are dependent on the results of the in-season tournament, along with the knockout round schedule, will be announced at a later date (see details below).[35][1]
The NBA Cup, formerly the In-season tournament, will return for the 2024–25 season, with the same structure:[38][39][35]
All games except the championship final counting towards the regular-season standings.
Six intraconference pools of five (three pools per conference).
Tuesdays and Fridays during November and early December feature group games against each of the other teams in their pool (two at home and two on the road). These games still count as regular season games.
The winners of each pool (three teams per conference) and two wild-card teams (one team per conference) advance to a single-elimination tournament.
The semifinals and championship game will once again be played in Las Vegas.
Players for the tournament champion will receive prize money that is to be determined.
To compensate, the NBA's regular season scheduling formula was modified so only 80 games for each team were initially announced during the offseason. The first two rounds of the in-season tournament would then count as regular-season games 81 and 82. The championship game would then be an extra 83rd game that would not count toward the regular season. Teams that did not qualify for the in-season tournament knockout round, or were eliminated in the quarterfinals, would be scheduled additional games against other teams that were eliminated in the same conference (if possible) and round to reach 82 games.
The Los Angeles Clippers have moved to the new Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. The team played at the Crypto.com Arena for the past 25 years in Downtown Los Angeles, California, since the 1999–2000 NBA season.
The Brooklyn Nets promoted their secondary logo to their primary and introduced a new secondary logo.[41]
The Los Angeles Clippers unveiled a new logo and uniforms to coincide with their move to Intuit Dome. The team's new logo features a stylized clipper ship with basketball seams on its hull, surrounded by points of a compass and a navy blue "C" in a white circle. The new uniforms are modern versions of the script uniforms previously wore between 1987 and 2015. The white uniform features a "Clippers" modernized script wordmark in navy blue along with red numbers, the navy blue uniform features the "Clippers" script in red along with white numbers, and the alternative red uniform features a "Los Angeles" script wordmark in navy blue along with white numbers.[42]
The Toronto Raptors unveiled a logo to commemorate their 30th anniversary.[44]
The Memphis Grizzlies unveiled a logo and classic jerseys to commemorate their 30th anniversary.[45]
The Utah Jazz will begin a two-season long transition to a modernized version of their 1996-2004 uniforms, with new "City" and "Statement" uniforms debuting this season, and new "Association" and "Icon Edition" uniforms debuting next season.[46]
The Washington Wizards have a new "Statement" uniform, with the phrase "The District of Columbia" on the front of the jersey.[47]
This will be the last season of a nine-year deal with the ESPN family of networks, TNT Sports, and NBA TV, before new 11-year deals with ESPN, NBC and Amazon Prime Video begin in 2025–26. The 2024–25 season would thus mark the end of TNT airing NBA games since 1989, and TNT Sports' overall relationship with the league since 1984 on TBS.[48][49]
ESPN has Wednesday and Friday night games during most of the regular season, along with select Sunday games from February to April, and a Monday doubleheader on March 17.[50] TNT's schedule includes Tuesday night games during most of the regular season, and Thursday nights during opening week and the second half of the season.[51] NBA TV televises games when the other national broadcasters are not airing games.[52]ABC airs NBA Saturday Primetime games on seven selected Saturdays between January and March (including a tripleheader on January 25), and NBA Sunday Showcase games on five selected Sunday afternoons in February and March.[50] ESPN/ABC and TNT may also feature simulcasts or alternative broadcasts of selected games on ESPN2 and TruTV, respectively.[53]
TNT will again have the NBA All-Star Weekend (except for the Celebrity game which continues to air on ESPN) for the 23rd and final year.[51]
On the final day of the regular season, Sunday, April 13, two games with playoff implications will be flexed into ESPN's afternoon doubleheader.[50]
This will be the second regular season that the streaming service Max will have live access to TNT's games on its Bleacher Report Sports Add-on tier.[51]
NBA League Pass continues to offer out-of-market games, live access to NBA TV, and on-demand replays of every game.[52]
The Portland Trail Blazers and Root Sports mutually agreed to end their television agreement prior to the season.[56] On September 23, 2024, the Trail Blazers announced that they had signed a multi-year agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group to be their new broadcaster. KATU and KUNP will be the flagship stations, the group of over-the-air stations carrying games across the team's broadcast territory will be branded as the Rip City Television Network, and games will stream locally on a new direct-to-consumer streaming service named BlazerVision.[57]
Altitude Sports and Entertainment, the television home of the Denver Nuggets, announced prior to the season that it had reached an agreement with Tegna Inc. to simulcast 20 games on KTVD in Denver. Select games will also be simulcast on KUSA.[58]
This is the first season that the Gotham Sports App, owned by a joint venture between MSG Networks and YES Network, will be the exclusive streaming home of the Brooklyn Nets and New York Knicks. The app will not change the television rights for the Nets and Knicks.[59]
As part of the bankruptcy, on August 23, 2024, Diamond Sports signed a long-term agreement with thirteen of the NBA teams that it holds rights to, committing to broadcast their games through at least the 2024–25 season, but with a 30 to 40 percent reduction in their rights fees. Despite being a long-term deal, if Diamond Sports is unable to get a bankruptcy plan approved by the court, the agreement will expire following the end of the season. Diamond also terminated its contracts with the Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans;[60][61] the Pelicans intend to sign a multi-year agreement with Gray Television to replace Bally Sports New Orleans as their broadcaster, with WVUE-DT in New Orleans as flagship station. Gray previously aired 10 Pelicans games on their stations last season.[62] The Mavericks signed a multi-year agreement with Tegna Inc. as their broadcaster, with KMPX and WFAA as their flagship stations.[63] As a result, KMPX will convert from a Spanish-language affiliate of Estrella TV into an English-language independent station.[64] Tegna previously aired 10 Mavericks games last season.
As part of a reorganization plan filed on March 1, 2024, there were plans for Bally Sports to end its naming rights agreement with Bally's Corporation and rebrand it before the season begins.[65]
On June 27, 2024, Bronny James was selected 55th overall in the 2nd round of the 2024 NBA draft. Being the son of LeBron James, they will mark the first father-son duo to play together in league history.[66]
On July 1, 2024, Jayson Tatum signed a five-year, $314 million contract extension with the Boston Celtics, the largest in league history.[67]
On July 24, 2024, the NBA announced that it has signed new 11-year media deals with the ESPN networks, NBC Sports and Amazon Prime Video that will begin in 2025–26,[49] rejecting TNT Sports' matching rights offer for Amazon's package. The NBA claimed TNT was unable to fully match the terms of Amazon's all-streaming contract. TNT subsequently filed a lawsuit against the league in a Manhattan New York state court, seeking to delay the new media deals from taking effect and to rule that TNT's offer matched Amazon's deal.[68]
The NBA cut the average back-to-back regular season games per team by 23 percent to help curb "load management", when teams rest more than one healthy star player on any given night. Teams no longer play four games in five nights, eight games in 12 nights, nor play on the day before or after "high-profile" nationally televised games.[69]
For the third consecutive season, the league did not schedule regular season games on Election Day in the United States, which will fall on November 5 in 2024.[1]