For seventeen years, the city whose heart beats for basketball has had a quiet arena during fall and early summer. This is a city that has forged stars such as Jamal Crawford, Brandon Roy, Paolo Banchero and now the number one recruit in the class of 2026, Tyran Stokes. This city yearns for basketball.
The league, and more specifically, League Commissioner Adam Silver, has floated the idea of expansion since 2020, constantly teasing fans in Seattle and presumably Las Vegas.
One ingredient that has held off expansion is a fresh media deal.
Thankfully for basketball fans, one was finalized this past summer. It will last until the 2035-2036 season, grossing the league $76 billion and seeing games across Disney-owned properties, NBC and Amazon Prime. This will help recover lost revenue affected by the pandemic.
Another piece of the puzzle is the reduction of income relating to owners.
“For every additional team you added, you’re diluting the economics of the current league,” Silver said in a press conference during Summer League.
The biggest hurdle to the expansion in any league is convincing current owners to take less money. More teams mean less money, and established owners don’t want to see a drop in revenue.
Then, overnight, the problem was solved.
It was staring at the league, its fans and the media in the face, and not many realized it. The goal should not be to expand, it should be to relocate.
Memphis and New Orleans are on the chopping block.
They’re twins, talented, small-market, injury-prone teams ranking towards the bottom of average attendance, while their arena leases dwindle as time goes on.
Both teams will see the end of their arena deal before the turn of the decade in 2029, only a short few years away. It is scaring New Orleans fans the most.
A possible deception has been floating in the thick, muggy, New Orleans air. The ownership group is giving up.
No promotional calendar until recently, the end of NBA draft watch parties for fans and no marketing slogan.
At a glance, these might seem like nothing, but when an ownership group wants out, disconnecting with fans is the first step.
Before the backlash of no promotional nights, the Pelicans had nothing in store, and not hosting draft watch parties is another piece to the relocation puzzle. Hoping to go on as many nights as possible without connecting with the fans is an attempt to begin to cut ties to the people of New Orleans.
The other 29 teams have a unique, distinguishable marketing slogan this year. The Pelicans are the outlier. From “We the North” to “Celtic Pride,” the Pels kept it simple with “Pelicans.”
Seattle and Las Vegas are watering at the mouth of the failures in New Orleans and Memphis.
Seattle already has a formal ownership group ready to make a bid, being the owners of the second newest NHL team, the Seattle Kraken. The group is led by Samantha Holloway.
The same cannot be said for Las Vegas. With no formal group, it leaves room for speculation. NBA Legend, Lebron James, and Fenway Sports Group are interested but have not voiced it formally.
Seattle, without a national presence for 17 years, is looking to the horizon. A horizon that has basketball back in the Emerald City.