There has been an awfully large amount of smoke coming from Seattle about both the NBA and NHL coming to Seattle, especially with the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes reportedly looking at moving to Seattle.

Since the NBA quashed the Sacramento Kings' relocation efforts, the only way Seattle gets a team back is through expansion. The real question will be who gets team #32?

Kansas City and Las Vegas seem to be the only western options on the table outside Seattle. This would require one team to move to the Eastern Conference, likely Memphis, Minnesota, or New Orleans. Kansas City has the Sprint Center, which has no regular sports tenant now that the Arena Football League has left again. Ironically, the Sprint Center is actually one of the busiest in the country between January-March.

The only arena large enough for the NBA in Las Vegas is UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center. Gambling issues could be worked around, but the casinos would not want regular competition for people's entertainment dollars.

Louisville would be a new market for the NBA, without any direct competition from the rest of the big four. The lease between the University of Louisville and the KFC Yum! Center would need to be reworked. There may also be some interference with the Indiana Pacers (who are shown in Kentucky on Fox Sports South) and even the Cleveland Cavaliers (Fox Sports Ohio). The Memphis Grizzlies may even have some concern about the Nashville market, as Nashville is only 3 hours from Louisville. Indiana-Louisville could be a huge rivalry (actually dates back to the ABA era).

Virginia Beach, like Louisville, would have no other major professional sports competition. Unlike Louisville, there currently isn't a suitable arena, but one is in the planning stages. Charlotte and Washington would likely be the only toes that get stepped on, but Washington especially would have a chance for another geographic rival.

There are several markets in Connecticut that have sufficient capacity in terms of available personal income (Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport), but would the Knicks, Nets, and Celtics want another team on their doorstep.

Lets see, the NBA has 6 divisions @ 5 teams each. I doubt they expand. If they went to 32 I guess they could go to 2 divisions in each conference with 8 teams OR 4 divisions with 4 teams.


Not sure what is on the NHLs slate as far as expansion goes because it seems like lots of teams are relocating. Although, their new divisional structure is kind of odd to me.

Actually at 32 teams and 6 divisions, the NBA almost has a perfect setup for an 82-game schedule:

Each team plays its own division opponents 4 times
Each team plays the other teams in its conference 3 times
Each team plays the teams in the other conference 2 times

The four divisions of five teams have an extra game to schedule against each other - that could even be a permanent crossover

Southeast - Miami, Orlando, Charlotte, Atlanta, Washington
Atlantic - New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Toronto, Philadelphia
Central - Detroit, Chicago, Indiana, Louisville, Milwaukee, Cleveland
Pacific - Sacramento, Golden State, Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, Phoenix
Southwest - San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Memphis, Oklahoma City
Northwest - Utah, Denver, Minnesota, Portland, Seattle

In the above alignment the teams in the Southeast Division play an extra Atlantic Division opponent (especially useful for Philadelphia-Washington) and the teams in the Pacific Division play an extra Northwest opponent (Portland and Seattle used to be in the Pacific Division, so no set crossovers works better here).

I think Memphis would be more than fine with a move to the Eastern Conference, but Minnesota makes more sense with Milwaukee, Chicago, and Indianopolis being their natural geographical rivals. Memphis, NOLA, OKC, and the Texas teams make a nice southwest division.

i'd like to see cleveland get a team

(06-24-2013 12:01 PM)Lush Wrote:  i'd like to see cleveland get a team

don't be surprised if lebron opts out and comes back to cleveland. imagine him with irving, thompson, waiters and their #1 pick?

I'd like to see the Clippers move to Anaheim and finally move out of the Lakers shadow.

(06-25-2013 02:59 AM)Caltex2 Wrote:  I'd like to see the Clippers move to Anaheim and finally move out of the Lakers shadow.

Sterling gets too good of a financial ride out of using the Staples Center.

(06-17-2013 09:52 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  There has been an awfully large amount of smoke coming from Seattle about both the NBA and NHL coming to Seattle, especially with the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes reportedly looking at moving to Seattle.

Since the NBA quashed the Sacramento Kings' relocation efforts, the only way Seattle gets a team back is through expansion. The real question will be who gets team #32?

Kansas City and Las Vegas seem to be the only western options on the table outside Seattle. This would require one team to move to the Eastern Conference, likely Memphis, Minnesota, or New Orleans. Kansas City has the Sprint Center, which has no regular sports tenant now that the Arena Football League has left again. Ironically, the Sprint Center is actually one of the busiest in the country between January-March.

The only arena large enough for the NBA in Las Vegas is UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center. Gambling issues could be worked around, but the casinos would not want regular competition for people's entertainment dollars.

Louisville would be a new market for the NBA, without any direct competition from the rest of the big four. The lease between the University of Louisville and the KFC Yum! Center would need to be reworked. There may also be some interference with the Indiana Pacers (who are shown in Kentucky on Fox Sports South) and even the Cleveland Cavaliers (Fox Sports Ohio). The Memphis Grizzlies may even have some concern about the Nashville market, as Nashville is only 3 hours from Louisville. Indiana-Louisville could be a huge rivalry (actually dates back to the ABA era).

Virginia Beach, like Louisville, would have no other major professional sports competition. Unlike Louisville, there currently isn't a suitable arena, but one is in the planning stages. Charlotte and Washington would likely be the only toes that get stepped on, but Washington especially would have a chance for another geographic rival.

There are several markets in Connecticut that have sufficient capacity in terms of available personal income (Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport), but would the Knicks, Nets, and Celtics want another team on their doorstep.

Hartford/New Haven is the largest market without a pro franchise; it's ranked #30 (and it would be about #25 if you included Springfield, Massachusetts, which is just over the state line). It will probably remain without a franchise since both NY and Boston are just 2 hours away and have established fan bases.

The Hartford Whalers drew very well and had a lot of community support. But the stadium was not good at generating revenue and the team left for Carolina in 1997.

Always wondered why St Louis or Pittsburgh were not considered by the NBA both have drawn well for their NHL teams. Not only that football doesn't exactly have much of a fanbase in St Louis, a good NBA team could really make inroads there.

Pittsburgh isn't a basketball market. I'd be a fan of the team day 1 though.