The NBA may move a step closer to adding teams in Seattle and Las Vegas next week when expansion — which has been a topic for some time — will again be discussed by the league’s board of governors, two people with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press on Monday.
A vote is planned on whether to go forward with those two cities as the sole expansion targets at this point, the people said.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity because those details were not released publicly.
It would take a three-fourths majority of governors to go forward, meaning 23 of the 30 teams would have to approve the motion. Owners are also expected to get an update next week on where the NBA and FIBA stand on plans for a new league in Europe, one of the people said.
ESPN first reported that the vote was planned.
Expansion being on the agenda is not a surprise: the board gathers for only a few meetings each year, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said on multiple occasions that a decision will be made by the end of 2026 on whether the 30-team league will add one or two new franchises in the coming years.
“Not a secret, we’re looking at this market in Las Vegas. We are looking at Seattle,” Silver said in December, while in Las Vegas for the NBA Cup final. “We’ve looked at other markets as well. I’d say I want to be sensitive there about this notion that we’re somehow teasing these markets, because I know we’ve been talking about it for a while.”
There have been countless factors to consider, including what the expansion fee for a new franchise will be — it will be in the billions, with some in the league thinking a number exceeding $6 billion is not out of the question — and what adding two more teams will mean for the on-court product.
Silver said last July that the league’s owners wanted an “in-depth analysis” of what expansion would look like, including what it would mean for the dilution of talent and the potential effects — good and bad — of selling equity in the league.
If both Las Vegas and Seattle were added, it’s also long been believed that an existing team would need to be moved from the current Western Conference list into the Eastern Conference to create two 16-team sides of the league. Geographically, Minnesota, Memphis and New Orleans would be the most logical candidates to go from West to East.
Seattle had a team until the SuperSonics were moved to Oklahoma City in 2008. Las Vegas has wanted a team for some time; Basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson is among the names most often mentioned as part of potential ownership if a team gets awarded there.
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