On June 18, 2015, Shawn Marion officially announced his retirement after playing 16 seasons with one NBA championship with Dallas Mavericks in 2011.[1]
On June 23, 2015, Andrei Kirilenko officially announced his retirement after playing 13 seasons in the NBA.[2]
On July 2, 2015, Kenyon Martin officially announced his retirement after playing 15 seasons in the NBA.[3]
On July 22, 2015, Stephen Jackson officially announced his retirement after playing 14 seasons with one NBA championship with San Antonio Spurs in 2003.[4]
On August 11, 2015, Elton Brand officially announced his retirement after playing 16 seasons in the NBA.[5]
On September 23, 2015, Jason Richardson officially announced his retirement after playing 14 seasons in the NBA.[6]
On November 13, 2015, Hedo Türkoğlu officially annouced his retirement after playing 15 seasons in the NBA.[7]
On October 1, 2015, the Golden State Warriors announced that assistant coach Luke Walton would take on the interim head coach role while Steve Kerr recovers from back pain issues that he had throughout the summer.[18]
This will be the eighth and final year of the current TV contracts with ABC, ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV before the new nine-year contracts begin in 2016.
ABC announced that they would be adding a game on Saturday nights (formerly NBA Sunday Showcase) as well as continuing their marquee game on Sunday afternoons. The first Saturday night game will be Saturday, January 23, 2016 with the Cleveland Cavaliers hosting the Chicago Bulls.[25]
The Philadelphia 76ers began to refer to their home area, the Wells Fargo Center, solely as "The Center" in team correspondence, due to the team's disdain about Wells Fargo not being a corporate partner in the team. The team's redesigned floor de-emphasizes the sponsor of the team's arena, with the text of the Wells Fargo Center logo rendered in white that blends in with the floor, and is in the most minimal font which can be discerned by a television camera. However, television and radio broadcasts still use the full arena name despite the 76ers' wishes. [26]
The 2016 NBA playoffs will begin on Saturday, April 16, 2016 and will conclude with the 2016 NBA Finals which will begin on Thursday, June 2, 2016 on ABC. ESPN will broadcast the Eastern Conference Finals and TNT will broadcast the Western Conference Finals. ABC will broadcast the finals.
For the first time in franchise history, the Minnesota Timberwolves entered an NBA draft with the first overall draft pick. The Timberwolves selected Karl-Anthony Towns, who is the first #1 selection to come out of the Dominican Republic. The team also had three straight #1 draft selections on the same team, joining alongside Anthony Bennett and Andrew Wiggins at one point. However, Bennett agreed to a buyout with the Timberwolves before the season began, on September 23, 2015.
The Houston Rockets became the first team in league history to start off a season with three straight losses of 20 (or more) points from October 28 to November 1, 2015.
On November 2, 2015, LeBron James surpassed Kobe Bryant to become the youngest player to score 25,000 career points at 30 years, 307 days during the fourth quarter in a road victory against the Philadelphia 76ers. He also became the 20th player in league history to reach the 25,000 point moniker that day.
On November 14, 2015, Tim Duncan moved to 5th on the all time career blocks list, surpassing former teammate and Hall of Famer David Robinson. Coincidentally, his teammate Tony Parker also became the 34th player to hit the 6,000 career assist mark.
On November 15, 2015, Kevin Garnett became the fifth player in league history to play over 50,000 minutes throughout his tenure, as well as surpassed Elvin Hayes as the fourth-most played player in league history. He would achieve that mark by playing 23 minutes in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
On November 17, 2015, LeBron James surpassed Jerry West during the first quarter of a loss to the Detroit Pistons as the league's 19th highest scorer of all-time.
On November 21, 2015, Dwyane Wade would replace Dale Ellis and Reggie Theus as the league's 49th best scorer ever. He would first overtake Dale's spot by making a free-throw late in the second quarter in a home victory over the Philadelphia 76ers, while he'd soon overtake Reggie's spot by making two free-throws in the middle of the fourth quarter in the same game.
The Philadelphia 76ers became the first team in league history to start out multiple seasons in a row with 0–14 records.
The NBA confirms that as of this season, the format for allowing playoff teams to enter will change to allow solely the best eight teams in the Western and Eastern Conferences to enter based on records alone, regardless of who wins their divisions in their conferences. As a result, the tiebreaker stages will end up changing to accommodate those changes as well.
