It has been 33 days since the Los Angeles Lakers claimed the Larry O'Brien Trophy and the 2019-20 NBA season ended. In a mere 18 days, training camps for the 2020-21 season will begin.
The league knows when it will hold the draft (Wednesday), start free agency (Nov. 20), open camps (Dec. 1) and begin the regular season (Dec. 22). The salary cap and luxury-tax lines for the season have been set. Outside of that, little is known at this point about how things will work this season, which has led to frustration around the league.
"I'd love to be able to tell you something, but I don't know anything," one Western Conference executive told ESPN. "I find out everything from the media."
Multiple executives said they feel out of the loop as the league tries to adjust its rules and offseason calendar on the fly to begin the season before Christmas in an attempt to preserve between $500 million and $1 billion in revenue.
"We know it's hard, and they're working on a lot of details," one team president said. "They are listening to a lot of feedback from all of us. But at times we feel like we're in the dark and that can get frustrating."
The concerns range from player health to uncertain safety protocols to logistical challenges -- such as a tight window to build rosters before play resumes -- to general life annoyances, including scuttled vacation plans.
Abruptly moving the 2020-21 start date up from a possible tipoff in January -- or even later -- has left teams scrambling.
"Nobody knows the rules," another executive said, "and [the league] is making it up as it goes along."
With less than three weeks left before the opening of camps, the league still hasn't adjusted dates for contract options and trade exceptions -- which must happen before free agency can begin next week. Teams are also still awaiting guidance on arena protocols for the upcoming season as coronavirus numbers across the United States spike. It took months to set those protocols for the bubble when the league resumed play this summer in Florida. The NBA doesn't have months now.
"Everything is happening last minute, in a short period of time," an Eastern Conference executive said. "There's not much time to think through things."
Teams located in states that have allowed limited fans for NFL games or other sporting events are in the process of determining how large a COVID-19 capacity crowd would be. The availability of rapid testing and feasible safety measures are factors being considered.
One high-ranking executive estimated that his team would limit crowds to a few hundred fans to begin the season, considering the trend of coronavirus case numbers soaring. He anticipated crowds as large as 5,000 fans if case numbers decreased significantly. Many more would be able to attend after a vaccine is widely distributed. The Lakers announced Wednesday that they would play games without fans until "it is safe to do so."
Beyond fans, questions remain about safety protocols for team staff, arena workers and countless others who will need to be in the building to stage games as the NBA returns to home markets.
"I think there's a different perspective on it than five months ago [before the bubble]," the East executive said.
The Toronto Raptors still have to figure out where their home market will be. After being forced to head to Florida early to prepare for the NBA's bubble because of travel restrictions in Canada, the Raptors remain unsure if they'll be allowed to play games in Toronto this season and have begun exploring temporary homes in the United States.
All of this pandemic-induced uncertainty remains while the NBA also tries to undertake its typical offseason activity. In a normal year, nearly three months separate the free-agent signing period and the start of training camp. This year, that time frame will be compressed to 11 days.
"It's likely we're going to sign guys a day, two days, three days before training camp starts and so we are going to have to use that time to get in shape," one NBA head coach said. "We can't overreact to things going wrong or taking longer in camps because you don't have the same amount of time to iron out kinks along the way.
"There is going to be a lot of learning on the fly."
Mark Daigneault, who became the last of nine head coaches to take a new job this offseason when the Oklahoma City Thunder promoted him on Wednesday, has exactly one week before the draft and less than three weeks before his first training camp.
"The good thing for me is that the organization has been humming all this time," Daigneault said. "We're ready for whatever comes our way always, and Dec. 1 is no exception to that."
New Orleans Pelicans coach Stan Van Gundy was hired on Oct. 22, two months before the scheduled start to the season. He said Pelicans vice president David Griffin and general manager Trajan Langdon have been handling most of the outstanding logistical issues, allowing him to focus on his roster. But Van Gundy isn't losing sleep over the quick turnaround.
"The pace is different, not harder," said Van Gundy, who was coach of the Orlando Magic for the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season.
One of Van Gundy's colleagues, however, is losing something: a vacation home.
Expecting the offseason to last far longer than it did, one head coach rented a home for three months out of market. Those vacation plans have obviously now been cut short.
That's just another wrinkle in what is the shortest offseason in league history -- one that will leap into warp speed in just a few days, when things will begin moving nonstop until the season tips on Dec. 22.
"There's a lot of unknown factors," Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said. "Draft day, the 19th and the 20th are gonna be crazy.
"We'll be resting up and ready for that battle."
Malika Andrews, Andrew Lopez, Tim MacMahon, Dave McMenamin, Brian Windhorst and Royce Young contributed reporting to this story.