The Nation­al Bas­ket­ball Play­ers Asso­ci­a­tion vot­ed Thurs­day to sup­port the notion of start­ing this com­ing sea­son on Dec. 22, the date that the league has been tar­get­ing in its talks about how and when to get teams back on the floor for a planned 72-game season.

The vote, con­duct­ed by the NBPA’s board — which has a play­er rep from each team, entrust­ed to speak on behalf of his team­mates — is just anoth­er part of a lengthy process. Among the pri­ma­ry mat­ters still to be deter­mined: how much escrow will be tak­en from play­er salaries because of the short­er-than-usu­al sea­son, and how the league and the play­ers will nav­i­gate test­ing and oth­er health and safe­ty issues amid the ongo­ing coro­n­avirus pandemic.

All that has to be worked out before the plans for next sea­son tru­ly become official.

“Addi­tion­al details remain to be nego­ti­at­ed and the NBPA is con­fi­dent that the par­ties will reach agree­ment on these remain­ing issues rel­e­vant to the upcom­ing sea­son,” the union said in a statement.

Talks between the NBA and NBPA on those and oth­er top­ics are con­tin­u­ing, though there is obvi­ous urgency to final­ize things. The NBA draft is sched­uled for Nov. 18 and the plan pre­sent­ed to play­ers — and now approved by the team reps — calls for train­ing camps to begin on Dec. 1.

Free agency would almost cer­tain­ly have to be wedged between the draft and the start of those camps, the league year would have to open, trades would have to become per­mis­si­ble again and some play­ers need to be pre­sent­ed with dead­lines by which they will have to either accept or decline options for this com­ing season.

The NBA want­ed the Dec. 22 start date over a mid-Jan­u­ary notion for many rea­sons, rev­enue being fore­most among them. A 72-game sea­son, by league esti­mates, would allow for $500 mil­lion more in rev­enue than a sea­son of no more than 60 games — the mid-Jan­u­ary option — would have provided.

The Dec. 22 start also means that the NBA’s tra­di­tion­al Christ­mas sched­ule of games will be pos­si­ble, some­thing the league and its broad­cast part­ners want­ed. The sea­son is also expect­ed to con­clude before the start of next summer’s Tokyo Olympics, mean­ing NBA play­er par­tic­i­pa­tion in those games remains possible.

Full state­ment from NBPA below:

“The Board of Play­er Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Nation­al Bas­ket­ball Play­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (NBPA) has ten­ta­tive­ly approved a start date of Decem­ber 22, 2020 for the 2020–2021 NBA sea­son and a 72-game sched­ule. Addi­tion­al details remain to be nego­ti­at­ed and the NBPA is con­fi­dent that the par­ties will reach agree­ment on these remain­ing issues rel­e­vant to the upcom­ing season.”