NBA Owner Says League Expansion Is 'A No-Brainer'

NBA owners will be holding a vote at the Board of Governors meetings next week on expansion. Seattle & Las Vegas are the two cities being talked about, and according to at least one owner, it's a "no-brainer" to get done.

Report: One NBA owner says league expansion is a "no brainer" and "it’s gonna happen," per @AmicoHoops pic.twitter.com/CbJCAfmHeU
— NBA Base (@TheNBABase) March 17, 2026

Sam Amico of Hoops Wire says he got a text from an NBA owner last night that made it clear:

No brainer. It’s gonna happen.

The two new franchises, once confirmed officially, will likely start play in the 2028-29 season. According to Shams Charania, the first vote is for the league to focus on which two sites are being targeted—Las Vegas and Seattle. It would set out a bidding process for ownership of the teams.

There would then be another final vote later in the year, says Charania, to finalize it. Both votes would require 23 of the existing 30 teams to vote in favor.

The only dissenting issues that some teams are wondering about, per Charania, is that the move would see their teams' league equity go from 1/30th to 1/32nd.

Nonetheless, this is all seen as a slam dunk, so to speak.

For Seattle, of course, it'll be a return of the Association to the city where the SuperSonics played for 41 years, through 2008.

For Las Vegas, the city would complete its recent entries into the other three major North American team sports. The Golden Knights came into the NHL in 2017, the NFL's Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020, and Major League Baseball's Athletics have already left Oakland, and are in a three-year holdover in Sacramento while their Las Vegas stadium gets set for completion for the 2028 season.