Will NBA expansion actually take place in the coming years?
The answer to that question is seemingly still up in the air, but NBA expansion has been a topic of discussion among observers for years. With so much talent spread across the league's 30 franchises, rumors around the addition of teams continue to circulate.
Recently, Yossi Gozlan, Sam Quinn and Keith Smith walked through what expansion would look like in practice on the Third Apron Podcast. Quinn and Smith made the selections, while Gozlan, the show's host, helped analyze the duo's picks.
In an expansion draft, each team would be able to protect eight rostered players, with players who are under contract or entering restricted free agency that aren't protected eligible to be selected by the new teams. Each team can only have one player selected from their roster.
In the Third Apron's expansion draft, the Oklahoma City Thunder protected Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, Lu Dort, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace and 2025 first-round pick Thomas Sorber.
That left Ousmane Dieng, Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins, Jaylin Williams, Kenrich Williams, Nikola Topic and Ajay Mitchell unprotected and eligible to be selected.
Of the aforementioned players, Wiggins was selected in the Third Apron's expansion draft. Quinn, an NBA writer for CBS Sports, selected Wiggins with the mock draft's No. 1 overall pick. Initially, Quinn planned to select Topic, but negotiated with Gozlan, who was representing the Thunder, to draft Wiggins instead in return for the Philadelphia 76ers' 2026 first-round draft pick, which Oklahoma City owns the rights to.
Smith agreed that Topic was also the top player on his board.
Wiggins averaged a career-high 12 points, 3.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists while shooting 48.8% from the field and 38.3% from beyond the arc on 4.5 attempts per contest. While the 26-year-old wing's stats from the 2024-25 campaign were solid, his standout performances were even more intriguing.
During the regular season, Wiggins turned in a 41-point, 14-rebound performance in a win against the Sacramento Kings, connecting on six shots from beyond the arc. The four-year veteran also notched a pair of strong showings in the NBA Finals, notching 19 points in Game 2 and 14 points in Game 5, helping OKC to crucial wins in each contest.
Wiggins knocked down nine triples in those two games alone, providing a spark for the Thunder's offense, which was in desparate need of 3-point shooting during against Indiana.
Aside from his pair of double-digit performances in the finals and a 21-point outing against Memphis, though, Wiggins was quiet for much of the postseason. Bench players like Wallace and Caruso played most of the team's non-starter minutes, which Wiggins averaged 13.8 minutes per game in the playoffs.
Before the 2024-25 campaign, Wiggins signed a five-year, $45-million extension with the Thunder. The Third Apron's mock expansion draft, though, placed the 6-foot-6 scorer on a roster with TJ McConnell, Goga Bitadze, Cam Whitmore, Mouhamed Gueye, Jamal Shead, Lonzo Ball, Zach LaVine, Julian Champagnie, Clint Capela, Andre Jackson Jr., Pacome Dadiet, Pelle Larsson, Tre Mann and Jarred Vanderbilt.
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