I'm guessing the arena is looking to resell naming rights while the meat of the NBA season (that is, the "real NBA" starts after Christmas) has yet to be played

I'm guessing the arena is looking to resell naming rights while the meat of the NBA season (that is, the "real NBA" starts after Christmas) has yet to be played and the naming rights can be resold. They probably don't want to wait for the company to fail payment and lose what would probably be rights worth about 2 million dollars per in-season month.