2019–20 NBA season

On January 26, the season took an abrupt delicate turn when Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, who was less than four years into retirement from the league, died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others.

On August 26, the season was suspended for a second time by a wildcat strike, to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake and police brutality, during the playoffs.

[47][48][49] The Los Angeles Clippers and the Dallas Mavericks played one preseason game in Canada, at Rogers Arena in Vancouver on October 17.

The reformatted regular season, with 8 more games scheduled for 22 qualified teams going to the NBA Bubble in Orlando, was released on June 26.

On January 26, 2020, less than four weeks after commissioner emeritus David Stern died from a brain hemorrhage at age 77,[59] recently retired Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were tragically killed when the Sikorsky S-76B helicopter that they were on board crashed into a hillside in the city of Calabasas, California, around 30 mi (48 km) northwest of Downtown Los Angeles, while en route from John Wayne Airport to Camarillo Airport.

[62] The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.

[63] A year later on February 9, 2021, the cause of the crash was officially determined to be Zobayan experiencing spatial disorientation due to heavy fog in the Los Angeles area that morning.

[64][65] There were eight NBA games that were scheduled to be played on the day of the accident, the first of which being between the Houston Rockets and Denver Nuggets, as Pepsi Center (now Ball Arena) was the first NBA arena to acknowledge Bryant's death with the Nuggets holding a brief tribute prior to tip-off and concluding the memorial with the message "Rest in Peace, Mamba".

[69] Notably, Kyrie Irving, who at the time was a member of the Brooklyn Nets, excused himself and left Madison Square Garden prior to tip-off against the New York Knicks, upon learning of Bryant’s death.

James would eventually surpass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to stand alone as the NBA's all time leading scorer three years later on February 7, 2023.

This tribute began with Usher performing "Amazing Grace" and was capped off by a rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner by Boyz II Men before being concluded with a speech from James, who initially had a monologue prepared, but quickly tossed his index card onto the hardwood after saying "Laker Nation man, I would be selling y’all short if I read off this shit, so I’m going to go straight from the heart", as he proceeded to address a sorrowful Staples Center crowd with an emotional, improvised oration, ending his speech with "...so in the words of Kobe Bryant: ‘Mamba out’, but in the words of us: ‘not forgotten’, live on brother".

[79] On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California.

[80] A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at the Staples Center (now Crypto.com Arena) with Jimmy Kimmel hosting.

[81][82][83] On October 11, 2020, the Lakers defeated the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to capture their 17th championship in franchise history and would dedicate the victory and their season to Bryant.

[84] In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, just less than three weeks after his death,[85] before being posthumously inducted in April 2020.

[93] On March 14, Detroit Pistons forward Christian Wood became the third NBA player to test positive for the virus, and the first outside of the Jazz.

[101] On May 29, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and the league office informed Board of Governors that July 31 was the target date for a season return.

[5] On August 26, 2020, the Milwaukee Bucks chose not to play in game 5 of the playoff series against the Orlando Magic to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

[106][107] This included regular testing for COVID-19 prior to and throughout the season restart, wearing a face covering or mask, and social distancing to prevent an outbreak of COVID-19 from occurring.

[108] Phase 1 of the plan ran from June 16 to 22, consisting of players traveling back to the home cities of their respective teams.

Once teams arrive in Orlando, players and staff were isolated in their rooms, requiring to pass two polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests 24 hours apart before being let out of this quarantine.

During Phase 6, when the regular-season seeding games and playoffs were under way and teams began to be eliminated from contention, players and staff on those clubs had to pass one final COVID-19 test before they could leave Disney World.

[170] Fox also invoked a clause to give Yankee Global Enterprises the rights to buy their stake back in the YES Network, which aired the local broadcasts to the NBA's Brooklyn Nets.

[171] Including YES, the Fox Sports Regional Networks held the local TV rights to a combined total of 44 NHL, NBA, and MLB teams.

[172] On March 8, YES was sold to a consortium including Yankee Global Enterprises, Amazon, and Sinclair Broadcast Group for $3.5 billion.

[174] The networks continued to temporarily use the Fox Sports name under a transitional license agreement while Sinclair explored re-branding options.