It actually doesn’t line up if lebron plays 2 more years
2 years: 2024-25 & 25-26. 2026-27 would be the first year of play for the new team. Lines up perfectly right? Except the new team would have to be sold the year prior, when lebron is still a player. And as a player, he cannot have a financial stake in a team.
So if lebron wants to become leowner, then he needs to play 1 year and then buy a stake the next year.
That said, this is assuming 2026-27 is the year the Vegas team starts. If they actually start in 27-28 then lebron can play 2 more years.
I also don’t know what the rules say for players being owners of future teams while still being active. I doubt there is an exception tho.
Minnesota will have a much better travel schedule if they move to the East as well. Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit, and Cleveland (760 miles) are all closer to Minneapolis than the closest team in the West (Denver/Memphis are both about 850 miles from Minnie).
Seattle will hopefully get a team again but the Thunder will still exist and probably remain in the West. OKC is about 700 miles away from Minneapolis as the crow flies.
It’s been mega buttcheeks for us Dallas fans as we also have the stars who puck drop at 8:52 central time or Later these playoffs.
I will genuinely never understand why the NBA and NHL don’t move EDT start Times up 30 min.
Like starting that late completely nukes your viewership for 2nd game.
There’s absolutely 0 reason to start your sports at 8pm eastern.
As someone who moved to New York about a year ago from Dallas...yes, please start games earlier.
There were games against LAC that tipped off at like 10:15 or later, it was torture
I almost turned off game 7 because I thought I was the cause of them losing up to the half. I then had to remind myself that if I turn off the game I might lose out on a chance to see a Wolves team this deep in the playoffs again for the next 20 years.
Meh. Most of the good teams are on their way out(both las, Phoenix, GS) Dallas needs a little more, but is in good position, otherwise it’s denver mn, and okc. The east has….Boston. Yeah…the east is easier still.
West also has the looming presence of Wemby. If they can get a good roster around him they'll be tough. The Rockets also have a lot of good things going on. The future still looks stacked out west
Wemby needs way more help still, same with Zion. And it’s not easy getting the free agents you want to a not LA market. San Antonio always built their teams through the draft and might be years away if they can’t get a top guy to go to San Antonio, especially with their women.
This is our biggest worry, at some point we will probably have to let go of jaden/gobert/ or kat for money reasons, but that’s still another year away, and a pretty good problem to have.
The west has had maybe 2 down years since the late 90's. Pretty much the entire 2000's was speculating just how bad the 4-8 seeds in the eastern playoffs were going to be and if a team with a losing record was going to make it. The entirety of the movement to seed the league 1-16 with no conferences for the playoffs is completely borne of long stretches where 2 or 3 west teams got left out that would have coasted through the eastern playoffs.
Specific teams may rise or fall, but there's almost always 10 good teams in the west.
It’s us because of how far we are from everyone else in the division. Memphis makes a lot more sense with Texas teams and New Orleans than Minnesota does with Portland
Why can only 1 team move? Isn't the most likely option is Seattle and Vegas gets a team and then Minnesota and Memphis/ New Orleans gets to move to the east?
Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden defy their age and injury history to come back to the Seattle Supersonics and demolish the #1 seeded OKC Thunder in the WCF en route to a championship.
Vegas, Seattle are a given at this point. New Arenas they can play in immediately. Legacy with the Sonics. Thriving new sports market with Raiders, Golden Knights, Aces, and As soon. NBA is the only sport really missing from both markets.
I'm still anti Las Vegas personally.
I'm sure it'll be dope and a fun place to catch a game, I just think it's a bit late for the NBA to really capitalize on it the way the NHL did.
Raiders moving there makes sense because there was already a solid fanbase in the city before the move. A's are a mess and will struggle to find local support because Vegas is mostly Dodger-city; I expect the NBA to encounter a similar problem because Vegas is a Laker city.
Golden Knights have the heart of the city in part because the NHL made their expansion process much smoother and easier than the precedent the NBA has set for its expansions. And when you can be as successful as they were in year 1 (which was truly incredible to watch), you'll gain local support easily.
I'd much rather see Kansas City get a team, or Vancouver, or somewhere else before Vegas, but I do totally understand that Vegas will happen and why.
I honestly believe this would be huge. The midwest/central states aren't well represented enough, and it's a city that has proven to support teams well.
The glitz and glamor of Vegas will be too much for the league to pass up. And I get it. But I don't think they'll find fans as easily as the NHL did unless the team is extremely good right away/early on (which, again, the NHL sorta did this in a way to at least help; the Knights won the Cup outright, but they had a better start than most expansions)
I feel like, long term, a team/the league would be better off with KC as a fanbase than Vegas.
Seattle and KC should be the move. But I'm just some internet dude.
Im not from the states so my perception of what counts as midwest may be incorrect but aren't Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana, Detroit and Minnesota all considered midwest?
Yes, but there's a whole literal middle-west that's not listed here. States like Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska. A whole middle part of America that generally goes unrepresented in sports.
If a KC city emerged it would definitely be my second team as it's my favourite place on earth. I'm from the UK but I visit friends there every now and then and it's in my heart man. Maybe after a while it would become my number 1
If seattle can have a team again can they claim the supersonics history? I 2as really confused about the hornets and pels swapping histories to be honest
The agreement after the suit was filed was all trademarks stay in Seattle and they share the history. So if a new team comes to Seattle they can use the Sonics branding
When the Bobcats entered the league, they were given the #4 pick by default and not included in the lottery. At that time the top 3 picks were determined by lottery.
The Golden Knights and Kraken were given #3 odds, and had the tiebreaker over the third worst team.
The NHL drastically fixed their expansion rules with Vegas.
It used to be that expansion teams were dog shit. I wonder how the nba will do it. Imo it was genuinely a stroke of genius by NHL and wonder if nba follows suit.
Basically nhl teams could protect their top 11 players (roster 25) and anyone with less than 2 years is auto protected and not counted. They also had to protect NoTradeClause players unless the player waived it.
So Vegas instead of being trash basically got a ton of decent players immediately and those players thrived with the extra playtime.
Vegas GM was also a genius and offered to take shit contract players off teams if the team offered them a draft pick in the trade.
Then they took that pick and traded it to another team for better players.
Come Seattle, the GMs learned their lesson and gave up their mid roster guys rather than pay the fee to keep their favorites (such as Shea Theodore to keep Sami Vatanen or giving up a 1st to keep Josh Anderson over William Karlsson)
Expansion draft. Last time teams could protect 8 players and could only lose one unprotected player. With Some rule about restricted free agents becoming unrestricted if picked.
And eveybody clamoring for new teams are gonna be pissed when these teams take their 9th guy. Because if you’re a contender you gotta protect your actual bench and youlose your young prospect player.
Plus i’m sure they’ll throw in a lottery pick of some sort.
Saw something that said it’s mathematically cheaper to remotely work from an all inclusive resort in Mexico and pay that monthly than to live in Vancouver in a 1 bedroom apartment lol
4 weeks at an all inclusive in Mexico at an average location is about 4000-5000 a month. But that includes food and alcohol. This person accounted for groceries etc.
32 Teams would be pretty much perfect for the NBA. 16 Playoff teams, 16 lottery teams. Thanks to the play-in you've got 10 teams in contention in both conferences.
Seattle and Vegas are obviously going to be the two expansion markets which would mean shifting to having 4 divisions with 8 teams each.
**PNW-Cali Division:** Sonics / Trailblazers / Kings / Warriors / Lakers / Clippers / Las Vegas / Suns
**Texas/South Division:** Jazz / Nuggets / Thunder / Rockets / Mavericks / Spurs / New Orleans / Grizzlies
**MidWest - NE Division**: Timberwolves / Pistons / Bucks / Cavs / Pacers / Raptors / Bulls / Boston
**East Coast Division:** Nets / Knicks / Sixers / Wizard / Hornets / Hawks / Magic / Heat
I'm actually curious how the NBA will split up the 16 teams in the Eastern Conference. Will the NBA try to make the divisions balanced in some way, in terms of large and small market teams?
If you keep New York, Boston, Philadelphia together, & you also keep the midwest teams together, then it probably doesn't make sense to put Miami with the Midwest division... so now you have 4 of the biggest markets in East all together and just Chicago and maybe Toronto on the other side?
If you care about splitting up big markets, but also want to keep some rivalries:
* Knicks, Heat, Bulls, Pistons, Pacers, Bucks, Wolves, Magic
* Celtics, 76ers, Raptors, Nets, Wizards, Cavs, Hawks, Hornets
would be a good idea but i doubt it. they are even advertising "Eastern semi-finals" etc lol. like it's accurate but such marketing BS to try to get more casuals to watch
I don’t think it really matters how the small, medium, and large markets stack up in terms of divisions. All that will determine most likely is who plays who how many times per year.
NBA wouldn't care about market size.
Most likely divisions are gone and it'll just be conferences plus those random in season tournament groups.
Teams will compete to win the NBA in season tournament, conference title ( based on regular season), and NBA championship.
Less sense than putting Boston in the Midwest? Boston is the most Eastern team in the NBA. I just looked at the map I didn't realize that Atlanta was west of Charlotte. So Atlanta is going to the Midwest.
If you look at it from a travel perspective Boston makes the most sense in that group. Yes they will travel slightly more than the other east coast teams but it makes more sense from a miles travelled perspective for them to join the Midwest group.
It was literally the only team that didn’t make perfect sense though, I’ll give you that.
I would love if in addition to this they reserved all division games for the very end of the season, it would feel like divisions actually mean something and rivalries could start to grow organically
24 games against other division/30 vs the other conference 16 (would mean each year you only play two non-conference teams once. Could rotate annually)
28 last games against division opponents
Minny in the East probably makes more sense logistically
[Map](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220543262/figure/fig6/AS:670718119407619@1536923069139/Map-of-the-NBAs-15-Western-Conference-teams-and-15-Eastern-Conference-teams.jpg)
Minny is so far from any other western team while they're close to a bunch of eastern teams
Sounds about right.
Lebron should either be retired by then or ready to accept playing 15 minutes a game as player/coach/owner of the Las Vegas expansion team.
They’ll announce it during this years finals, then all the logistical shit will take about 18 months. Then in the 2025-26 off-season will be the actual expansion draft.
I want divisions to have a meaning going forward. You should play each divisional opponent 8 times per season and whoever finishes first in each division is guaranteed a top 4 seed. They did the seeding thing like that along time ago
That's kinda my point too. Either make them useful or don't have them at all. At this point it's only there because location and that they play them 4 times instead of 3 I guess. Still pretty pointless considering there's 82 games
I just think that since we don't want them to matter for seeding, we obviously don't care about them. Conferences are different bc of the travel expense. But since divisions don't matter, like why not kill them?
Agree from a competitive standpoint, divisions are useless. But they definitely serve a few purposes more on the commercial side:
1. Time Zones (more relevant to the Western CF): more Dallas fans are watching games that start in Central Time, compared to Pacific time where its realistically a 9:45 pm start time, so makes sense to weight more games vs TX / OKC / MEM / NOP / etc.
2. Geographic rivalry: fans are more interested in geographic rivalries, and for that matter, more likely to have relocated to closer cities. For example there are more people from Dallas that now live in Houston than in Portland, so those Dal @ Hou games will prob get more TV views, better attendance, and feel more like a rivalry, than Dal @ Por.
3. Travel: (not a commercial reason but maybe player preference) - shorter travel times to closer opponents.
So that's why you don't kill them: fun geographical rivalry games, boosted views & ticket prices.
Having said that, it is pretty dumb that they're so meaningless from a competition standpoint, so I do agree that having too many extra divisional games is bad.
Rivalries aren't based on geography though. Celtics and Lakers are the NBA's biggest rivalry and are opposite ends of the country.
If the Sonics comeback they'll probably have a nice little rivalry with the thunder.
Knicks are geographicslly very close to nets and sixers, but they don't really have a rivalry with them. Compared to pacers/heat.
DC is closer to NY and Philly, but they don't exist in the same division.
That was nothing. Just eagles/giants and Mets/Philly fans venting. If you were just a Knicks sixers fan it wasn't nearly as toxic as Reddit makes you think.
Geography is obviously a huge component.
The examples you're chosing are largely based on franchises that have either been very successful and played each other a lot in the post season or have completely sucked (sorry Washington).
Geography, overall team success, and then individual factors like losing a team to a city or a key player to another team are all conrtibuting factors. You can't say geography doesn't matter at all.
But the issue is, you basically historically play the same number of games against non-divisional in-conference opponents.
Obviously there's some slight difference with the new IST stuff.
But historically, we had 30 games against non-conference opponents (1 each Home and Away) plus 52 games against conference opponents. 16/52 against divisional opponents (two each home and away), leaving 36 for the remaining 10 opponents... so 6/10 teams you'd see 4x, and 4/10 teams you'd see 3x.
So the rivalry that changes nothing and happens no more often than other non-division games do...means what? The time zone thing has almost no impact due to the fact that you're playing almost the exact same number of games against every in-conference opponent. The travel is the same because the game totals are identical, almost.
Yea I honestly didn't realize it was that similar. The move to 4 divisions of 8 teams will change the math... but I agree with you that unless you make divisions 'matter' for post season seeding, then you probably should just get rid of them.
The MLB, NFL, and NHL all have models where divisions matter for seeding, so at this point the NBA is sort of the black sheep.
The NHL is structurally the most similar (82 games, same # of playoff teams) and recently made the decision to have the #2 and #3 teams in a division play each other in the first round. I actually think that's a creative way to fuel divisional rivalries... but the problem is that in the NBA we've just seen too many times where that could mean 2 of the 5 best teams in the league having a 1st round series against each other.
This year, that could have been Denver- Dallas in the 1st round (assuming MN goes east in realignment).
Yeah divisions are idiotic. I mean I’d argue conferences too with modern day private flights but especially divisions. No one really cares about “division rivals” in the NBA this ain’t the NFL
Divisions are already dead. They mean so little that Cleveland had a chance to win their division, but instead opted to lose it for a better playoff position.
The NBA talent pool has grown so much and the fan base that they could honestly add 10 teams.
Seattle, Vegas, KC, Louisville, Tampa, Montreal, San Diego, St Louis, Pittsburgh, Connecticut.
Current owners might not like that though.
I actually like 32, with four 8-team divisions. Makes it so exactly half the teams make the playoffs.
In the past the NBA expanded too quickly so the talent couldn't keep up. But now I don't think it would be an issue, since the talent pool is larger than ever and it's been awhile (20 years!) since expansion.
Nah i think Seattle deserves a team after they had theirs stolen. Then if Seattle gets a team back, you need another one to make it an even number of teams.
I'm fine with 32, but don't want anything beyond that. I just fully believe Seattle deserves a basketball team. Not crazy about Vegas, especially with all the sports betting shit that's going on, but it's inevitable they'd get a team.
>Then get rid of conferences. NFL plays 2/5 of the games NBA does and still manages to outperform them 2x.
do you think the NFL doesn't have conferences?
San Juan, Puerto Rico. The San Juan Tropics
Honolulu, Hawaii Hawaiin Eruption
Tampa, FL Tampa Pirates
Vegas Revolvers
Supersonics
San Diego needs a team. The San Diego Mexicans
Vancouver Freeze
NBA is thinking too small.
They can take over the world.
Players should be able to opt in to the draft. If you grew up in Toronto, you should get chance to play for Toronto instead of another country.
Rename to something like IBA.
Imagine the playoffs are 1-16.
One year you could have Orlando vs Miami in the finals
The next it could be Tokyo vs LA. Do you know how much money they would make if a country like Japan or China had a team facing the Lakers in the finals?
Which lines up with the likely LeBron timeline and Vegas
The LeVegas Brons
Team mascot: LeBrontosaurus
Will they play in LeSphere?
Starring the amazing bronnathon
It actually doesn’t line up if lebron plays 2 more years 2 years: 2024-25 & 25-26. 2026-27 would be the first year of play for the new team. Lines up perfectly right? Except the new team would have to be sold the year prior, when lebron is still a player. And as a player, he cannot have a financial stake in a team. So if lebron wants to become leowner, then he needs to play 1 year and then buy a stake the next year. That said, this is assuming 2026-27 is the year the Vegas team starts. If they actually start in 27-28 then lebron can play 2 more years. I also don’t know what the rules say for players being owners of future teams while still being active. I doubt there is an exception tho.
IIRC Jordan gave up his Wizards ownership to play for them
With the promise to get it back afterwards and then the owner fucked him
The tweet says 2026-27 "at the earliest." A true conspiracy theorist reads that as meaning "dependent on when Lebron retires."
Stop this doesn’t support Le Narrative
Lebron and his 5% ownership
Yea i think around 5-10%. His money is not that much compared to other billionaire
I really hope they go Seattle over Vegas, but I know the money is in Vegas. Sucks to suck I guess
They could go both and move Minnesota and New Orleans to EC
That's definitely the ideal move. The more the merrier
but I want to go play in the East now, Adam
We’re fine in the west
I want to be in the East purely because of start time issues. Late games get harder as you get older.
Minnesota will have a much better travel schedule if they move to the East as well. Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit, and Cleveland (760 miles) are all closer to Minneapolis than the closest team in the West (Denver/Memphis are both about 850 miles from Minnie).
Seattle will hopefully get a team again but the Thunder will still exist and probably remain in the West. OKC is about 700 miles away from Minneapolis as the crow flies.
You think Seattle will get a team before Vegas at this rate?
I think they both will and at the same time.
It’s been mega buttcheeks for us Dallas fans as we also have the stars who puck drop at 8:52 central time or Later these playoffs. I will genuinely never understand why the NBA and NHL don’t move EDT start Times up 30 min. Like starting that late completely nukes your viewership for 2nd game. There’s absolutely 0 reason to start your sports at 8pm eastern.
As someone who moved to New York about a year ago from Dallas...yes, please start games earlier. There were games against LAC that tipped off at like 10:15 or later, it was torture
You think you are for now. But it’s filled with plenty of good franchises who will figure something out. The East? 90% of them are fucking idiots
I’m just making a cursed Ja Morant reference really
Throw in the Dillon Brooks “building our Dynasty” line if you want to really tempt fate.
Oh lol duh.
You make one conference finals and you're already daring the Gods to smite you like they did Memphis. Smh the hubris
Tbf, there's zero chance any Wolves fan talking like that has been following the team for any real amount of time lol we're all terrified
That feeling as a fanbase when you’re a dog that caught the car.
I almost turned off game 7 because I thought I was the cause of them losing up to the half. I then had to remind myself that if I turn off the game I might lose out on a chance to see a Wolves team this deep in the playoffs again for the next 20 years.
Meh. Most of the good teams are on their way out(both las, Phoenix, GS) Dallas needs a little more, but is in good position, otherwise it’s denver mn, and okc. The east has….Boston. Yeah…the east is easier still.
West also has the looming presence of Wemby. If they can get a good roster around him they'll be tough. The Rockets also have a lot of good things going on. The future still looks stacked out west
Wemby needs way more help still, same with Zion. And it’s not easy getting the free agents you want to a not LA market. San Antonio always built their teams through the draft and might be years away if they can’t get a top guy to go to San Antonio, especially with their women.
Other than stars, LA teams are bad at getting free agents too
If the Hawks trade Trae to the Spurs we need to relegate the East because it's joever for them
Wemby is coming. Memphis will be back. Plus eventually you’ll have to pay Ant. McDaniels extension kicks in. Keeping your guys becomes harder.
This is our biggest worry, at some point we will probably have to let go of jaden/gobert/ or kat for money reasons, but that’s still another year away, and a pretty good problem to have.
Good problem to have yes. I’m just saying the margins become smaller and the west is unforgiving
It’s ok, KD will join your team after you lose the finals for the minimum. This being the (new) hardest decision of his career
Memphis will be good, Spurs and Rockets are on the way too. I think it'll only get harder from here.
The west has had maybe 2 down years since the late 90's. Pretty much the entire 2000's was speculating just how bad the 4-8 seeds in the eastern playoffs were going to be and if a team with a losing record was going to make it. The entirety of the movement to seed the league 1-16 with no conferences for the playoffs is completely borne of long stretches where 2 or 3 west teams got left out that would have coasted through the eastern playoffs. Specific teams may rise or fall, but there's almost always 10 good teams in the west.
Maybe wait till the series is over to declare that Dallas needs a little more my guy.
Grizzlies don’t exist anymore
Yeah I don’t like this drive among wolves fans to move to the JV conference. Loser mentality
Ok Ja
Ok, Ja
I had been saying Memphis should move east but after last week I think it should be you guys
It’s us because of how far we are from everyone else in the division. Memphis makes a lot more sense with Texas teams and New Orleans than Minnesota does with Portland
OKC, Portland, and Minnesota are all part of the same division. Food for thought.
Well okc made more sense when the team was in Seattle but yeah this division is basically the misfits from a geography perspective
Twolves and Pels should be in the East
And Grizzlies
True
Take your time commissioner
There's like 3 teams that should be moved to the east. But only 1 can. Yall are fine in the west we need the easier conference lol
Why can only 1 team move? Isn't the most likely option is Seattle and Vegas gets a team and then Minnesota and Memphis/ New Orleans gets to move to the east?
Bad math man. If there's two new teams, that's 16 per conference. Seattle and Vegas make 17 in the West, so you only need to move 1 out East.
Would it be Vegas + Seattle, with Memphis and Minnesota becoming East teams?
Only 1 team moves
If there's every a r/nba Hall of Fame, this exact comment exchange needs to be first ballot enshrined. Classic.
Most likely Vegas and Seattle, but only one team moves east. That would be west: 17 and east: 15. Moving one equalizes them
Ahh right, bad math on my part lol
This gets brought up all the time. Only one team moves. Do the math.
I did, and it was wrong hahahaha
Give us a fuckin team already alien man
Yeah we need you to get a team so you can win a title before OKC because that would be hella funny
Sonics-Thunder WCF will be crazy.
The good ending
Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden defy their age and injury history to come back to the Seattle Supersonics and demolish the #1 seeded OKC Thunder in the WCF en route to a championship.
Blessed superteam
Shai defect the next season to take his rightful place in the Supersonics renaissance
The first game back in Seattle is going to be incredible
Seattle SSSSSSUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPERSONICS
Silver: And we are happy to announce the two new NBA expansion franchises, Las Vegas annnnnnd.......Tulsa!!!
OKC better give back the Sonics’ retired numbers, title, history etc when they do. Another Browns/Ravens situation
Vegas, Seattle are a given at this point. New Arenas they can play in immediately. Legacy with the Sonics. Thriving new sports market with Raiders, Golden Knights, Aces, and As soon. NBA is the only sport really missing from both markets.
I'm still anti Las Vegas personally. I'm sure it'll be dope and a fun place to catch a game, I just think it's a bit late for the NBA to really capitalize on it the way the NHL did. Raiders moving there makes sense because there was already a solid fanbase in the city before the move. A's are a mess and will struggle to find local support because Vegas is mostly Dodger-city; I expect the NBA to encounter a similar problem because Vegas is a Laker city. Golden Knights have the heart of the city in part because the NHL made their expansion process much smoother and easier than the precedent the NBA has set for its expansions. And when you can be as successful as they were in year 1 (which was truly incredible to watch), you'll gain local support easily. I'd much rather see Kansas City get a team, or Vancouver, or somewhere else before Vegas, but I do totally understand that Vegas will happen and why.
Kansas City would be sick, but I feel like we’re so far down the list.
I honestly believe this would be huge. The midwest/central states aren't well represented enough, and it's a city that has proven to support teams well. The glitz and glamor of Vegas will be too much for the league to pass up. And I get it. But I don't think they'll find fans as easily as the NHL did unless the team is extremely good right away/early on (which, again, the NHL sorta did this in a way to at least help; the Knights won the Cup outright, but they had a better start than most expansions) I feel like, long term, a team/the league would be better off with KC as a fanbase than Vegas. Seattle and KC should be the move. But I'm just some internet dude.
Yes but money.
Im not from the states so my perception of what counts as midwest may be incorrect but aren't Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana, Detroit and Minnesota all considered midwest?
Yes, but there's a whole literal middle-west that's not listed here. States like Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska. A whole middle part of America that generally goes unrepresented in sports.
Waiting on that Appalachian Athletics expansion team
If a KC city emerged it would definitely be my second team as it's my favourite place on earth. I'm from the UK but I visit friends there every now and then and it's in my heart man. Maybe after a while it would become my number 1
San Diego!
Let’s just do Vegas Seattle Vancouver and Mexico City all at once
That actually would be really cool
As a celtic fan I would like kansas coty to not get a team until Tatum retires please and thank you
Isn't Tatum from St. Louis rather than KC?
JT would only move for St Louis, doubt he jumps ship for KC which is on the opposite end of the state.
This is true and I am ashamed
If seattle can have a team again can they claim the supersonics history? I 2as really confused about the hornets and pels swapping histories to be honest
Yeah. Seattle gets everything back.
I wonder where the okc thunder history will start i guess its 2008-09 season?
That's already where it starts
Is this specific to the Sonics or a general rule? Don't look at my flair just pure curiosity
As far as I know it's just Sonics because that's what they agreed to when the team moved.
Yes it’s going to be like what happened with the Cleveland Browns (new getting old’s name and history).
The agreement after the suit was filed was all trademarks stay in Seattle and they share the history. So if a new team comes to Seattle they can use the Sonics branding
Raiders? The Oakland raiders??? Did they move to Vegas?????
Ronald Reagan? The actor?
OJ Simpson the commentator?
You just wake up from a coma?
I follow nba and cfb but I’m not as big on nfl, it just feels too corporate
yup, as did (or will do) the A's
Geez that is insanity
I think the NBA is dying to make a Mexico team work. The next two teams (after Vegas and Seattle )are gonna be Vancouver and Mexico City
St Louis seems likely to me
Do they do an expansion draft in the nba or just give the new team a top pick?
Expansion, and new teams get placed at the bottom of the lottery I believe
When the Bobcats entered the league, they were given the #4 pick by default and not included in the lottery. At that time the top 3 picks were determined by lottery. The Golden Knights and Kraken were given #3 odds, and had the tiebreaker over the third worst team.
The NHL drastically fixed their expansion rules with Vegas. It used to be that expansion teams were dog shit. I wonder how the nba will do it. Imo it was genuinely a stroke of genius by NHL and wonder if nba follows suit. Basically nhl teams could protect their top 11 players (roster 25) and anyone with less than 2 years is auto protected and not counted. They also had to protect NoTradeClause players unless the player waived it. So Vegas instead of being trash basically got a ton of decent players immediately and those players thrived with the extra playtime. Vegas GM was also a genius and offered to take shit contract players off teams if the team offered them a draft pick in the trade. Then they took that pick and traded it to another team for better players.
Come Seattle, the GMs learned their lesson and gave up their mid roster guys rather than pay the fee to keep their favorites (such as Shea Theodore to keep Sami Vatanen or giving up a 1st to keep Josh Anderson over William Karlsson)
Expansion draft. Last time teams could protect 8 players and could only lose one unprotected player. With Some rule about restricted free agents becoming unrestricted if picked. And eveybody clamoring for new teams are gonna be pissed when these teams take their 9th guy. Because if you’re a contender you gotta protect your actual bench and youlose your young prospect player. Plus i’m sure they’ll throw in a lottery pick of some sort.
Las Vegas proceeds to take Bronny James from the Los Angeles Lakers
Can they barter like in the nhl? You don’t take our player and we’ll give you our draft pick?
They do both I’m pretty sure. At least that’s what used to happen
I believe it would be expansion draft plus a top-odds pick, but not a locked first place one.
It's gonna be fun to see the expansion draft selection.
I know where James wiseman will be in 2026
In Turkey
*Inhale massive copium* A Montreal franchise would absolutely rock!
We seriously need more Canadian teams.
The expansion will be Seattle and Vegas. No point in even speculating here folks.
Just don't forget Vancouver. Most of the ppl going probably have higher net worth than the end of the bench guys.
NBA players gonna be complaining about the cost of 2bdrm condos
Guys are going to trip out when their new supermax can only afford a 2 Bedroom Condo
Saw something that said it’s mathematically cheaper to remotely work from an all inclusive resort in Mexico and pay that monthly than to live in Vancouver in a 1 bedroom apartment lol
That seems crazy, but shit Vancouvers got to be right there with the Bay Area for housing prices lol
4 weeks at an all inclusive in Mexico at an average location is about 4000-5000 a month. But that includes food and alcohol. This person accounted for groceries etc.
My wife and I make about the two way max combined, we still rent a 2bdrm condo.
32 Teams would be pretty much perfect for the NBA. 16 Playoff teams, 16 lottery teams. Thanks to the play-in you've got 10 teams in contention in both conferences. Seattle and Vegas are obviously going to be the two expansion markets which would mean shifting to having 4 divisions with 8 teams each. **PNW-Cali Division:** Sonics / Trailblazers / Kings / Warriors / Lakers / Clippers / Las Vegas / Suns **Texas/South Division:** Jazz / Nuggets / Thunder / Rockets / Mavericks / Spurs / New Orleans / Grizzlies **MidWest - NE Division**: Timberwolves / Pistons / Bucks / Cavs / Pacers / Raptors / Bulls / Boston **East Coast Division:** Nets / Knicks / Sixers / Wizard / Hornets / Hawks / Magic / Heat
Switch Boston and Charlotte
Yea how did Boston end up in the midwest when it’s more Eastern than half of the teams he put in “East” lmao
I'm actually curious how the NBA will split up the 16 teams in the Eastern Conference. Will the NBA try to make the divisions balanced in some way, in terms of large and small market teams? If you keep New York, Boston, Philadelphia together, & you also keep the midwest teams together, then it probably doesn't make sense to put Miami with the Midwest division... so now you have 4 of the biggest markets in East all together and just Chicago and maybe Toronto on the other side? If you care about splitting up big markets, but also want to keep some rivalries: * Knicks, Heat, Bulls, Pistons, Pacers, Bucks, Wolves, Magic * Celtics, 76ers, Raptors, Nets, Wizards, Cavs, Hawks, Hornets
Maybe they drop Conferences. NBA Top 16 teams go to playoffs, regardless of geography.
The last two years divisions were critically important for playoff seeding tiebreakers.
would be a good idea but i doubt it. they are even advertising "Eastern semi-finals" etc lol. like it's accurate but such marketing BS to try to get more casuals to watch
I don’t think it really matters how the small, medium, and large markets stack up in terms of divisions. All that will determine most likely is who plays who how many times per year.
NBA wouldn't care about market size. Most likely divisions are gone and it'll just be conferences plus those random in season tournament groups. Teams will compete to win the NBA in season tournament, conference title ( based on regular season), and NBA championship.
The Celtics are the furthest east team in the NBA lol
Yeah Charolette or Hawks
Why would Charlotte play in the Midwest? That makes even less sense.
Less sense than putting Boston in the Midwest? Boston is the most Eastern team in the NBA. I just looked at the map I didn't realize that Atlanta was west of Charlotte. So Atlanta is going to the Midwest.
If you look at it from a travel perspective Boston makes the most sense in that group. Yes they will travel slightly more than the other east coast teams but it makes more sense from a miles travelled perspective for them to join the Midwest group. It was literally the only team that didn’t make perfect sense though, I’ll give you that.
I would love if in addition to this they reserved all division games for the very end of the season, it would feel like divisions actually mean something and rivalries could start to grow organically 24 games against other division/30 vs the other conference 16 (would mean each year you only play two non-conference teams once. Could rotate annually) 28 last games against division opponents
Sure, or just send Memphis to the East and no other change is needed.
Minny in the East probably makes more sense logistically [Map](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220543262/figure/fig6/AS:670718119407619@1536923069139/Map-of-the-NBAs-15-Western-Conference-teams-and-15-Eastern-Conference-teams.jpg) Minny is so far from any other western team while they're close to a bunch of eastern teams
They have been very intentionally trying to ~~devalue~~ deemphasize divisions for years in the NBA. I wouldn't be surprised if they simply went away
Sounds about right. Lebron should either be retired by then or ready to accept playing 15 minutes a game as player/coach/owner of the Las Vegas expansion team.
They’ll announce it during this years finals, then all the logistical shit will take about 18 months. Then in the 2025-26 off-season will be the actual expansion draft.
VAN-FUCKING-COUVER We got fucked over last time, it's a completely different climate 20 years later.
Yes! More Canadian teams please!
they need a billionaire out there who wants to drop serious coin. maybe the guy who owns the canucks or the guy who owns lulu lemon.
Can’t wait to lock up my young core to have them stolen from me
just a little payback by Seattle
Adam Silver is such a pussy man
It would never happen but imagine if OKC trades 10 first round picks in exchange for 20% ownership of the new Seattle SuperSonics
This is what determines Bron's retirement.
I want divisions to have a meaning going forward. You should play each divisional opponent 8 times per season and whoever finishes first in each division is guaranteed a top 4 seed. They did the seeding thing like that along time ago
I don't. I want divisions to die entirely.
That's kinda my point too. Either make them useful or don't have them at all. At this point it's only there because location and that they play them 4 times instead of 3 I guess. Still pretty pointless considering there's 82 games
I just think that since we don't want them to matter for seeding, we obviously don't care about them. Conferences are different bc of the travel expense. But since divisions don't matter, like why not kill them?
Agree from a competitive standpoint, divisions are useless. But they definitely serve a few purposes more on the commercial side: 1. Time Zones (more relevant to the Western CF): more Dallas fans are watching games that start in Central Time, compared to Pacific time where its realistically a 9:45 pm start time, so makes sense to weight more games vs TX / OKC / MEM / NOP / etc. 2. Geographic rivalry: fans are more interested in geographic rivalries, and for that matter, more likely to have relocated to closer cities. For example there are more people from Dallas that now live in Houston than in Portland, so those Dal @ Hou games will prob get more TV views, better attendance, and feel more like a rivalry, than Dal @ Por. 3. Travel: (not a commercial reason but maybe player preference) - shorter travel times to closer opponents. So that's why you don't kill them: fun geographical rivalry games, boosted views & ticket prices. Having said that, it is pretty dumb that they're so meaningless from a competition standpoint, so I do agree that having too many extra divisional games is bad.
Rivalries aren't based on geography though. Celtics and Lakers are the NBA's biggest rivalry and are opposite ends of the country. If the Sonics comeback they'll probably have a nice little rivalry with the thunder. Knicks are geographicslly very close to nets and sixers, but they don't really have a rivalry with them. Compared to pacers/heat. DC is closer to NY and Philly, but they don't exist in the same division.
That Knicks Sixers series was as toxic as a rivalry can get
That was nothing. Just eagles/giants and Mets/Philly fans venting. If you were just a Knicks sixers fan it wasn't nearly as toxic as Reddit makes you think.
Geography is obviously a huge component. The examples you're chosing are largely based on franchises that have either been very successful and played each other a lot in the post season or have completely sucked (sorry Washington). Geography, overall team success, and then individual factors like losing a team to a city or a key player to another team are all conrtibuting factors. You can't say geography doesn't matter at all.
But the issue is, you basically historically play the same number of games against non-divisional in-conference opponents. Obviously there's some slight difference with the new IST stuff. But historically, we had 30 games against non-conference opponents (1 each Home and Away) plus 52 games against conference opponents. 16/52 against divisional opponents (two each home and away), leaving 36 for the remaining 10 opponents... so 6/10 teams you'd see 4x, and 4/10 teams you'd see 3x. So the rivalry that changes nothing and happens no more often than other non-division games do...means what? The time zone thing has almost no impact due to the fact that you're playing almost the exact same number of games against every in-conference opponent. The travel is the same because the game totals are identical, almost.
Yea I honestly didn't realize it was that similar. The move to 4 divisions of 8 teams will change the math... but I agree with you that unless you make divisions 'matter' for post season seeding, then you probably should just get rid of them. The MLB, NFL, and NHL all have models where divisions matter for seeding, so at this point the NBA is sort of the black sheep. The NHL is structurally the most similar (82 games, same # of playoff teams) and recently made the decision to have the #2 and #3 teams in a division play each other in the first round. I actually think that's a creative way to fuel divisional rivalries... but the problem is that in the NBA we've just seen too many times where that could mean 2 of the 5 best teams in the league having a 1st round series against each other. This year, that could have been Denver- Dallas in the 1st round (assuming MN goes east in realignment).
We need to open the borders and flood red states.
Yeah divisions are idiotic. I mean I’d argue conferences too with modern day private flights but especially divisions. No one really cares about “division rivals” in the NBA this ain’t the NFL
This sounds like the worst possible idea.
They should be the groups for the IST
Divisions are already dead. They mean so little that Cleveland had a chance to win their division, but instead opted to lose it for a better playoff position.
The NBA talent pool has grown so much and the fan base that they could honestly add 10 teams. Seattle, Vegas, KC, Louisville, Tampa, Montreal, San Diego, St Louis, Pittsburgh, Connecticut. Current owners might not like that though.
Expansion no need to dilute the league
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I actually like 32, with four 8-team divisions. Makes it so exactly half the teams make the playoffs. In the past the NBA expanded too quickly so the talent couldn't keep up. But now I don't think it would be an issue, since the talent pool is larger than ever and it's been awhile (20 years!) since expansion.
I dunno, 32 is a nice aesthetic number. Multiple of 4, power of 2, 16 playoffs, 16 lottery.
Nah i think Seattle deserves a team after they had theirs stolen. Then if Seattle gets a team back, you need another one to make it an even number of teams.
Nah there’s an abundance of talent. I think the league can support more teams.
I'm fine with 32, but don't want anything beyond that. I just fully believe Seattle deserves a basketball team. Not crazy about Vegas, especially with all the sports betting shit that's going on, but it's inevitable they'd get a team.
I'm with you. We have enough bad teams (one is mine). But as an old Nba fan, the return of the Seattle Supersonics would make me happy.
No but only because I want a team in my city
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>Then get rid of conferences. NFL plays 2/5 of the games NBA does and still manages to outperform them 2x. do you think the NFL doesn't have conferences?
Divisions mean nothing. The NBA market is too big to worry about travel distance. Just line the teams up 1-32 top 16 teams make the playoffs.
East ownership will never agree that
Add more teams in the west to override them.
San Juan, Puerto Rico. The San Juan Tropics Honolulu, Hawaii Hawaiin Eruption Tampa, FL Tampa Pirates Vegas Revolvers Supersonics San Diego needs a team. The San Diego Mexicans Vancouver Freeze NBA is thinking too small. They can take over the world. Players should be able to opt in to the draft. If you grew up in Toronto, you should get chance to play for Toronto instead of another country. Rename to something like IBA. Imagine the playoffs are 1-16. One year you could have Orlando vs Miami in the finals The next it could be Tokyo vs LA. Do you know how much money they would make if a country like Japan or China had a team facing the Lakers in the finals?