For years, the NBA has flirted with expansion, with the most recent franchise added coming all the way back in 2004 with the Charlotte Bobcats, but it finally looks like expansion beyond 30 teams may be coming in the near future.
According to a recent report from Dallas reporter Brad Townsend, the NBA Board of Governors is set to vote this summer on adding two franchises to the league, likely in either 2027 or 2028. The two cities favoured to get franchises will be Seattle and Las Vegas, both of which have been looking for franchises for years. How would an NBA Expansion look, however? Let’s take a deep dive into what expanding to 32 teams would mean for the franchises, other teams, and the league at large.
New Markets
First, let’s look at what this means for the cities, starting with the new home of the Super Bowl trophy, Seattle.
Seattle, obviously, wouldn’t be new to having an NBA team if they got an expansion franchise. Seattle famously was the home of the SuperSonics from 1967 to 2008, but following financial troubles that saw the team unable to pay their arena lease, were moved to Oklahoma City and renamed the Thunder. The team that once was the SuperSonics is now defending NBA Champions, have the best record in the league, and are favourites to go back-to-back.
Ever since the team’s relocation, many people have angled to see an NBA franchise come back to Seattle. Investor Chris Hansen had the Kings dangerously close to getting relocated to Seattle, then made attempts with the Bucks and Hawks. However, none of the attempts came to fruition, and talks of giving Seattle their team back have stagnated since, for over 10 years – until now.
As for Vegas, it’d be their first time having an NBA franchise, and as the city looks to diversify into the sports world, this would be the last confirmed franchise for Vegas in the big 4 sports leagues. Vegas got their first major sports team when the Golden Knights were founded in 2017, then got a NFL team as the Oakland Raiders were relocated there in 2020, and will get a MLB team in 2028 when the Oakland A’s are moved there. The final frontier for Vegas is the NBA world, and they may finally get their team.
Obviously, Vegas would be a massive market for free agents and would probably be up there with LA, Miami, and New York as one of the most attractive free agent destinations in the league. Having Las Vegas in the league would introduce one of the richest markets in the league, and it isn’t hard to imagine Vegas becoming a contending franchise within five years of coming to the league.
Seattle would be a smaller market, but is historically significant in the league, and would be an intriguing destination for free agents looking to become the face of a new franchise with die-hard fans. Getting back an NBA franchise would represent the first time Seattle has had a team in all four major sports – the Seahawks in football, the Mariners in baseball, and the 2021-founded Kraken in hockey.
Personally, I’m skeptical about adding a franchise in Vegas. I feel like it would be a plastic franchise, like when a club in soccer gets loaded with Middle Eastern cash and immediately becomes a Champions League contender. But that’s just me.
Expansion Draft
An expansion draft would also represent massive shakeups for the league. The draft sees the expansion teams able to draft anyone from the current 30 franchises, other than the eight players a franchise has protected.
While we don’t know exactly who would be left for the expansion teams to draft, we do know that we’d likely see some good players and young talents in the draft pool. Don’t expect anything insane, but it would certainly shake some projects up around the league.
Conference Re-structuring
Both NBA conferences have 15 franchises, and both Seattle and Vegas are quite considerably in the Western United States. However, it’s daft to think it’s impossible that a west team could switch conferences. In the past, we saw the Hawks move from the west to the east (1970), the Pistons and Bucks move from the East to West (1970) and then move back (1978 and 1980), and the Bulls move from the West to the East (1980). However, it’s been 46 years since we’ve seen a NBA franchise switch conferences. Are we really going to see a team switch? And if so, who?
The three teams further east than anyone else in the Western Conference are the Grizzlies, Pelicans, and Timberwolves. Of the three, Memphis is furthest east, at a 90.05 W longitude, just barely east of New Orleans’ 90.07. This would mean, to keep Conferences even, we’d need to see the Grizzlies move to the East. Of course, this could be avoided if we saw a further east city get a NBA franchise instead, such as Pittsburgh.
New formatting
The last major question here would be how the NBA implements this into the format. The most likely option is that we see two new lottery teams, evenly distributing the NBA into 16 playoff teams and 16 lottery teams every season.
Other than that, we could see a play-in revamp with two new teams, maybe a whole new playoff system with two extra teams accounted for, but I support the even distribution of teams system. The only gripe with it is that it increases the NBA’s dreaded ‘middle’ even further. However, I say that it’s up to GM’s to get their teams out of the middle, not for the NBA to kill it.
Obviously, NBA expansion would be a big deal for the league at large. I’m excited to see how it’d affect the league, as we haven’t even seen a relocation in over a decade. Since 2014, the closest thing we’ve got to seeing a relocation or expansion is when the Raptors moved to Tampa for a year because of Covid. The idea isn’t confirmed, and it’ll still be a while until we know for sure if the expansion is happening. Just keep an eye on the situation.
