Las Vegas and Seattle are being considered for expansion.
The National Basketball Association’s Summer League begins on July 9th in Las Vegas and while basketball fans eyes will be on the draftees of the league’s 30 teams, local fans might not be all that interested in the 10-days of action. Las Vegas, along with Seattle, has been designated as a city of interest for league expansion. The questions that local media will have of the commissioner Adam Silver should be very elementary, nothing intricate. “Adam, how is the expansion process going and will Las Vegas get an expansion franchise by the end of the year?” There has been a lot of noise out of Las Vegas as to groups that want to buy an expansion team and where that team might play. Silver can explain the process but it would be very surprising if the NBA Commissioner would go into any great detail about the expansion plan. Silver has said and probably will reiterate that Seattle and Las Vegas remain the cities the NBA is focused on if it expands. If the league does add any franchises, that will more than likely happen for the 2028-2029 season.
In Seattle, it appears that the ownership group of the National Hockey League’s Seattle Kraken franchise led by Samantha Holloway is the primary bidder. Holloway’s One Roof Sports and Entertainment owns a piece of the recently rebuilt Seattle venue that could house a basketball team. The NBA gave its approval to Clayton Bennett in 2008 to move his Seattle SuperSonics franchise to Oklahoma City because Seattle’s arena was antiquated. In Las Vegas, the owner of the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights franchise, Bill Foley, said he will bid for a franchise. Shaquille O’Neal would like to be part of a Las Vegas NBA franchise ownership group. Magic Johnson has expressed an interest in owning a Las Vegas franchise. The NBA expansion process continues.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
