It’s been 20 years since the last NBA expansion, as the then-Charlotte Bobcats, now-Charlotte Hornets joined the league during the 2004–05 season. That gave the NBA uniformity with 30 teams and allowed for six divisions of five teams each.
The topic of NBA expansion has been widely discussed in the two decades since, but there’s been no real movement. That appears to be changing entering the 2024–25 NBA season, with commissioner Adam Silver stating that NBA expansion will be discussed at some point “this season.”
Silver made the comments after the NBA’s board of governors meeting in New York City on Tuesday. He was asked if expansion was part of the conversation of the meetings, and he said it wasn’t but said that’s because he and the board were holding off on those discussions until the season.
“It was something that we told our board we plan to address this season, and we’re not quite ready yet. But I think there’s certainly interest in the process, and I think that we’re not there yet in terms of having made any specific decisions about markets or even frankly to expand.”
The question about expansion was asked by Chris Daniels, a sports reporter for KOMO News in Seattle. The city he represents has been the location that’s most often popped up when it comes to NBA expansion. Seattle lost the SuperSonics to Oklahoma City in 2008 after failed efforts to upgrade their home arena, but it has since undergone renovations that totaled around $1.15 billion in recent years.
That venue—formerly known as KeyArena and now known as Climate Pledge Arena—has hosted preseason games since, and will host another between the Los Angeles Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers next month. With the upgrades, and the fact that the league deems the arena adequate for preseason games, Silver was asked if that meant the league believed the arena was now capable of hosting an NBA team, which would be the first step in one returning to Seattle.
While he didn’t directly address Seattle’s chances of being rewarded with a team, Silver has made previous comments indicating that Seattle is one of the frontrunners, as are Las Vegas and Mexico City.
Las Vegas is, unofficially, a home market for the NBA. It hosts the annual NBA Summer League, and in 2007, it hosted the All-Star Game, making it the first city without an NBA team to host the annual event. Additionally, USA Basketball often holds training camp, practices and exhibition contests in the city, including during the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympics. When the league began the In-Season Tournament, now known as the NBA Cup, in 2023, it made Las Vegas as the host city for the semifinals and finals of the event, and that will also be the case for the 2024 NBA Cup.
Silver also mentioned Mexico City, and the league has made several overtures to the Mexico capital in recent years. The city has hosted 29 NBA games—18 preseason and 11 regular season—and it will host its 30th on Nov. 2 when the Miami Heat and Washington Wizards play a regular season contest. Additionally, the NBA G League—the NBA’s official minor league—has had a team in the city since 2021 with the Mexico City Capitanes, who were added to the league, in part, to test the city as a potential market for a future NBA team.
Whether preseason games, G League franchises, All-Star events or the NBA Cup, the league cleverly uses these types of events as test cases for long-term viability for NBA franchises, both in terms of the venue and the market. Silver also mentioned that Canada is in the discussion as a possible expansion location, and the NBA will have another of those test cases in Montreal next month. The NBA Canada Series will pit a preseason game between the Toronto Raptors and Washington Wizards on Oct. 6 at Bell Centre in Montréal, and the city is one of six Canadian locations that’s been used in the NBA Canada Series.
“I think we have a pretty good library now of arenas everywhere in the world, and in part because even if we’re not playing there on a regular basis, there’s things we can learn,” Silver said.
