With a unanimous vote of 30 in favor, the NBA’s board of governors decided on Tuesday that the League would continue to study expansion, which, barring a catastrophe, will take place sooner rather than later. The vote was non-binding and another vote will be held later in the year to make it official, but Adam Silver set the train of team growth in his league in motion months ago and there is no stopping it.
By 2028-29, the NBA will have 32 teams. But what does it mean for the NBA to expand? What will be the consequences for the current teams? How will the new franchises be formed to compete? For those less familiar, here we try to explain the keys to the expansion that is coming in the NBA.
When the NBA wants to introduce something, it usually tests it first to receive feedback in the form of reactions. That’s what it’s been doing for almost six years since Adam Silver first seriously considered an NBA expansion in 2020 after almost two decades without new tenants.
The inputs were good, especially at a commercial level, because a few months ago the NBA gave the green light to study the matter in depth. Now the owners have said yes to expansion, at least to its “formal exploration“, and it seems that there is no turning back.
Economic impact
Economically, the NBA is going to grow mainly because of the two markets that are joining the league, Seattle, whose potential virtues are already known, and Las Vegas, which also offers no doubts. The teams, however, will have to share more, because there will no longer be 30 owners, but 32. But that is a minimal sacrifice, considering the benefit in greater market value that can generate offers of between $7 billion and $10 billion. In the sale of the Lakers or the Celtics, the other teams in the league received $500 million for the operation. With two such markets on the board, franchises will increase in value.
The expansion is expected to be made official before the end of 2026, with a vote expected in December. The two new teams will have to be ready to play their first season in 2028-29. And there will not necessarily be more games. The NBA’s idea is to keep the 82 games per team, cutting back on matchups between teams in the same divisions. But that remains to be seen
Las Vegas and Seattle, the chosen ones
On the list of ‘requests’ for an NBA franchise were many cities. Among those options were Kansas City, Louisville or Nashville in the United States, Mexico City as the NBA’s old idea of expanding south, or settling in other Canadian cities such as Montreal or returning to Vancouver. Although these are places that will be considered in the future, the ones chosen for this expansion are Las Vegas and Seattle, and the choice of both is by no means a coincidence.
With Seattle, the NBA wants to right a past wrong. The SuperSonics will once again have the team they should never have lost. Somehow, ever since the Sonics moved to Oklahoma in 2008, the NBA knew that basketball would return to Seattle, especially now that it has abandoned the old KeyArena, one of the reasons given for the move, for the renovated and much more modern Climate Pledge Arena.
Although there is nothing official, of course, it is expected that the Sonics will recover their history that they lent to the Thunder and to which they renounced. OKC did not want to know anything about their history outside of the Thunder and even considered that last year’s title is the first in their history. There is no banner with the one achieved by the Sonics in 1979.
Even with individual records, for the NBA the best passer in the franchise’s history is Gary Payton, who did not play in Oklahoma. For the Thunder, that position is held by Russell Westbrook, who did not play in Seattle
There was a precedent when the Hornets regained their history from the New Orleans Pelicans when they managed to be recognized again as the Charlotte Hornets in 2014, and not Bobcats, the name with which they lived the last NBA expansion experienced so far, in 2004.
In the case of Las Vegas, even in the days when David Stern was in charge, there was talk of a franchise there, but the then Commissioner was reluctant: “As long as there is betting on NBA teams, there will be no franchise there,” he said on one occasion.
But there was the All-Star Game (2007), the Summer League and the Thomas & Mack Center was the site of several USA team camps before international tournaments. Little by little, the relationship grew until Las Vegas was considered as a permanent home for the Cup. In recent years, franchises such as the Raiders (NFL), Knight (NHL), Athletics (NHL) and Aces (WNBA) have arrived in ‘Sin City’. It was only a matter of time before the NBA landed there.
The arrival of Las Vegas and Seattle will change the landscape of the conferences. Not by much, but it will change it. The two franchises will join the Western Conference, so one of the current franchises will have to move to the East. Due to their location, the Memphis Grizzlies and New Orleans Pelicans could be candidates, but their proximity to Texas cities (Houston, San Antonio and Dallas) makes them strategic to stay where they are. The most likely option is the Minnesota Timberwolves, who are more isolated in the north and close to cities such as Chicago, Milwaukee or Detroit.
The key to the Expansion Draft
Evidently, the NBA has not given details and it is possible that the fact that there are 32 teams could change the rules of the Expansion Draft, the expenditure that teams will have to make and the process of selecting the two teams’ Drafts. This will have to be detailed by the NBA before the final vote. As in other expansions, it is a matter of facilitating the integration of the new teams that start from scratch without giving too much advantage over their rivals.
In any case, the 2004 Expansion Draft, that of the Charlotte Bobcats, now the Hornets, was the last example and will be taken, in part, as a reference. The ‘veteran‘ teams were able to protect eight of their players. This changed from other expansion drafts, where teams had to leave at least one player unprotected, even if they only had eight players under contract. Players who became unrestricted free agents were included in the total, but a team could lose a restricted free agent without receiving anything in return.
In other expansions, each new team had the right to choose a player from the other franchises. There was also a law on rookie contracts that were automatically protected with a contract in force. For example, Hugo Gonzalez cannot be selected by Las Vegas or Seattle if the Celtics decide to exercise the team option and extend the relationshipuntil the 2028-29 season.
This new expansion process will be the twelfth in NBA history. The first took place in the early years, 1947 and 1949. In the 1960s they multiplied: 1961, 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1970. Then there were more in 1974, 1980, 1988, 1995 and the last one, in 2004. As an example, in ’66 the Chicago Bulls entered, in ’67 the SuperSonics and Rockets, in 1988 four teams entered, Hornets, Heat, Magic and Wolves and in 1995 the two Canadians, Raptors and Grizzlies.
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