Report: NBA 'Widely Believed' To Add Teams In Seattle, Likely Las Vegas
The NBA is expected to expand its league for the first time since 2004, according to Sportsnet's Michael Grange. Seattle is set to make its triumphant return to basketball, while Las Vegas is currently the odds on favorite to be the second expansion team.
It’s widely believed the NBA will expand for the first time since rounding out to 30 teams in 2004 partly to recoup losses from the pandemic. Returning to Seattle as part of the process is almost a given (with Las Vegas as the other likely city) now that the arena issues that led to the Supersonics leaving for Oklahoma City in 2008 have been resolved.
Before the start of this season, Adam Silver addressed the possibility of expanding the league. He believes that the NBA needs to consider both competitive and economic issues when ruminating over the possibility, but that it's been mulled over much more than during pre-pandemic times.
One of our focuses as the league office is always on how do you create better competition. So that’s one of the things that we continue to think about as we consider expansion…. Silver said in Decemeber 2020. It’s an economic issue, and it’s a competitive issue for us. So it’s one that we’ll continue to study, but we’re spending a little bit more time on it than we were pre-pandemic.
If the NBA does indeed expand, then all owners will receive an immediate cash injection, as well as divvy up future revenue among more teams.
Photo Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports
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