If Montreal or Mexico City, more double national anthems before each game. When the U.S. owner of Vancouver Grizzlies was asked why he sold the team. He cited one of the reasons: was the exchange rate being unfavorable at the time. Revenue like ticket sales came in as CAD, but the players were paid in USD. The losing, rising salary cost, lack of a mega star (Raptors had Vince) and Steve Francis not wanting to go there... all kinda snowballed. With NBA's current revenue sharing system maybe some of this are mitigated. But a team in another country could always pose some extra logistics.
Is Sheppard protected for some reason? If not he would definitely need to be in the 8. Depending how the year goes you might protect FVV to use as trade bait.
I went to the arena in Seattle for a hockey game last year. It's beautiful. Both Seattle and Las Vegas are examples of the NBA being short-sighted. They never should've left the former, considering the amount of tech money there, and are way too late arriving to the latter now that the NHL and NFL have arrived and the city's economy is hurting.
36 teams, do away with the double team city abomination, move Grizz to Nashville, scrap the Pelicans. Reward the 7 best cities. 70 game season, no conferences or divisions, 40 minute games. No offensive player initiated contact fouls called on the defense.
Vegas recently got NHL & NFL teams and is getting an MLB team starting in 2028. 100% chance the NBA is next. Zero chance Seattle and Vancouver both get an NBA team, at least this round. Vegas is a lock for #1 and Seattle seems to be certain as the other. OT: The Blazers are for sale, and knowing Seattle will get an expansion team has created local concern the Blazers will be moved by the new owner.
I've heard the NBA is as talented as ever, but there are plenty of abysmal teams now. Imagine if the league got even more watered down.
Did you not hear, half of the NBA players do not try 48 minutes a game......got nothing to do with talent. Money is a magical thing.
“This starts the NBA's 32-team expansion process. Multiple high-ranking officials have termed expansion as "when, not if." Now the NBA will examine Seattle and Las Vegas bids over the next several months, and whether to execute the new franchise purchases now or in a few years.”
Going to be interesting to see the roster moves that are made before the expansion draft because I would trade anyone valuable that I can't protect before it happens Also I think talent is relative. There will always be bad teams in the league because it just means they are worse than others. Cut the teams down to 10, the 10th team will still look like garbage because they will just get beat up on by the top teams more. The talent pool is undoubtedly the largest its ever been.
Those 2 expansion teams get better odds at a future Number 1 or Top 5 pick......this is more valuable than most players on contracts.
We will see because it sounds like they will do some anti-tanking thing and might change the odds. In the current draft lotto, I imagine they will just slide them in with a high chance of getting a top 5 pick though and run the lottery... The big thing will be the expansion draft though. Also, the Twolves moving to the Eastern conference along with the Pelicans or Grizzlies will be a big shakeup too. But the expansion draft will be something if its like the last one, can only protect 8 players and with two teams coming in it means deep teams like OKC/Celtics could lose two pretty good pieces...well this is a couple of years away so who knows how those teams rosters will look then but you get the point. It's going to make the conferences a little more competitive since a lot of the best teams will lose key players. A team like this years Rockets doesn't even go more than 8 deep so like...I doubt they would want Okogie or Capela or something lol.
It was already reported and drafted into the Rules..... https://basketnews.com/news-243227-6-potential-rules-nba-expansion-draft-2028.html
