The 2021 PBA season was the 46th season of the Philippine Basketball Association. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the season's start, originally scheduled on April 11, 2021, has been delayed until July 16, 2021. The league's Board of Governors announced that the season had two conferences: the Philippine Cup and the Governors' Cup.
The first activity of the season was the PBA Season 46 draft held on March 14, 2021.
Executive board
Commissioner: Willie Marcial
Chairman: Ricky Vargas (Representing TNT Tropang Giga) Vice-Chairman: Demosthenes Rosales (Representing Terrafirma Dyip) Treasurer: Richard Bachmann (Representing Alaska Aces)
Teams
Player quotas
Filipino-foreigners
The PBA allows for each team to have up to five players classified as "Filipino-foreigners" in their roster. Filipino-foreigners are natural-born Filipinos who are born outside the Philippines. Natural-born Filipinos born inside the Philippines are not classified as such, and a team can as many of them as roster size permits.
Imports
Naturalized Filipinos and foreigners can play as imports. They can only play in import-laced conferences, and usually a team is mandated to have at least one for the duration of the tournament.
A list of imports was provided on those conferences' articles.
Arenas
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Metro Manila, the season started to be played at Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig, in a closed-circuit format, with no spectators allowed for the meantime. On August 6, Metro Manila (of which Pasig is included) was placed under enhanced community quarantine, the highest level of quarantine; the league originally planned to continue at Lipa, Batangas. The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) allowed the PBA to resume in places which were under either modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) or regular general community quarantine (GCQ); with the placement of Batangas under GCQ with heightened restrictions, this removed it from the places the league can play at. The PBA settled in their choice to play in Pampanga for the meantime, as they don't see the quarantine classification in Metro Manila from going to regular GCQ. The PBA then got permission to play in the Don Honorio Ventura State University gym in Bacolor.
For the first two weeks of the 2021 PBA Governors' Cup, the league returned to the Ynares Sports Arena. Quezon City then gave the permission for sports events to be held there with spectators; the PBA was expected to play at the Araneta Coliseum for the rest of the year starting December 15. At the start of 2022, the PBA was also expected to return at the Mall of Asia Arena. However, with the rise of COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila, the IATF-EID placed Metro Manila under alert level 3, causing the league to postpone the games for the week starting January 3.
When the Governors' Cup resumed on February 11, the league announced that the games would be played at the Ynares Center in Antipolo for the duration of the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup qualification round to be played from February 24 to 28 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The league began playing at Mall of Asia Arena on March 23 during the Governors' Cup semifinals.
Transactions
Retirement
On January 24, Cyrus Baguio announced his retirement. Baguio played for 6 franchises in his 17 seasons in the association. On February 1, Harvey Carey announced his retirement. Carey played for TNT Tropang Giga for 17 seasons. On March 21, JC Intal announced his retirement. Intal played for 4 franchises in his 13 seasons in the association. On May 15, Jay-R Reyes announced his retirement. Reyes played for 8 franchises in his 14 seasons in the association. On May 25, Marc Pingris announced his retirement. Pingris played for 3 franchises in his 15 seasons in the association. On December 29, Garvo Lanete announced his retirement. Lanete played for 3 franchises in his 6 seasons in the association.