Seattle yea the Vegas one not so much. The heart of gambling exists online these days. You already see it on the shows and everything. I’m not sure what gambling related things Vegas would potentially add to the NBA viewing experience that isn’t already everywhere. Maybe a poker related team name I guess?

Maybe the expansion can be in Oakland.

Most Vegas residents would actually prefer their own homegrown teams instead of inheriting teams like the Raiders and A’s.

The Golden Knights are by far the most popular team in Vegas and will probably stay that way even when the A’s come.

Yeah, I wish Vegas was still the heart of it and didn’t have teams.

And that we couldn’t bet on phones.

Vegas also helps balance out the geography of the conferences. Both Seattle and Vegas would be in the West, and we’d probably see Minnesota move to the East being that they’re the only midwestern team in the West.

It’s always been outside of Vegas

Golden Knights seem to have cultivated a pretty solid following

Golden Knights and Aces seem to do well. Helps that both achieved success immediately once in Vegas.

Aces have great fans

It’s a very large and rapidly growing city. If you assume similar buy-in from Vegas locals as you have gotten from any other expansion city across sports in recent history, they will have a respectable fanbase and a winnable market. 

The entire state of Nevada?

Im a loyal A’s and Raiders fan and I’m not even from Nevada

Too bad the A’s move to Fremont was shot down. That’s Fresno at home

Fuck Vegas but do we really need a fourth California NBA team?

BRING OUT YOUR BUSTS

BRING OUT YOUR BUSTS

gary payton ii gets drafted to seattle its only right

They get the 2028 No 3 pick as Goodwill.

Not at the time but Vancouver has changed drastically in the last 20+ years. Population way higher and interest in basketball is still huge despite no local team. Canucks always sell well and have a ton of support while consistently trash so could be different this time around for the NBA

The grizzlies were set up to fail between horrible ownership and just being completely handcuffed by the league. I think a team could flourish in the city nowadays

Vancouver got screwed hard by the expansion draft rules because a lot of the owners hated how the Magic got good so quickly so they basically told expansion teams you can’t just get good number 1 picks. And then the Canucks owners basically tried to run the team but because Canada was not doing well economically they couldn’t keep it so they just were going to give it to people who everyone in Vancouver knew were gonna move the team.

For the two trips I’ve been to Vancouver someone is repping those teal Grizzlies jerseys and I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

I miss those games, I miss when basketball was a huge part of Seattle but now it’s just old spray paint and murals of old sonics players. Even Lenny Wilkins died this year after he got a statue. I mean c’mon the sonics fans deserve a win.

It absolutely devastated me in jr high. I used to go to games all the time growing up. I got to go court side a couple times at key arena and met some players as a little kid and then the NBA and Mr Starbucks lied to us. They said even if they sold they’d promise they’d never take the team because they knew what it meant to this city then boom his buddy from Oklahoma wants a team and David Stern makes it happen.

Yeah I can tell you that Seattle protested and begged and our last game ever the stadium cheered save our sonics and Kevin Durant jumped on the scorers booth and hyped the crowd up. I will never forget it. Permanently engraved in my brain as a core memory

Glad to hear I’m not alone. I would drink 0 coffee if that was my only option in life.

That’s how I feel. We just had this exact conversation the last two years and both times it was “the league isn’t ready and is pushing the years back a bit”

Now that would be a damn story for the ages. If we can actually get them back and it’s not another tease we might have a shot. This city deserves it we rebuilt our key arena for it and everything. This was a basketball town before it was anything. Local Seattle schools are insane for basketball talent I mean look through the list of studs from here.

As someone with no memories of the 90s who hears about how good of a city Vancouver is these days, how so?

doubtful. I’d say 2030.

No way are they going from a vote to expand to two new fully rostered teams in a year. There’s just too much that needs that happen.

You would need at least 6-9 months to find an owner, and then another couple of years after that to get the team running.

Ja: I’m fine in the East

Minnesota going to East would help balance the teams more in the conference

Minnesota makes the most sense geographically

New Orleans?

I wish it was New Orleans

Would only need one.

So they’re just absolute cannon fodder until they get lucky enough to draft someone that can make them trade around to start to be good?

if the Pacers get a top-4 pick, they’ll have more than 8 players that I want protected

It depends on how many they let each team protect.

Someone’s it’s a slightly better player (on a terrible contract the team wants gone)

The meme potential is astronomical

Memphis stole the grizzlies from Vancouver though

There was so much history and context missing from this comment. That team was setup to fail, and Vancouver has developed so much during that time, during that time, Vancouver should not had a team based on the metrics and development in my opinion. I assure you, more people will support than what I am seeing from Pelicans and Grizzles basketball. I am talking about 2026 and not past. What’s done is done when it comes to that time but moving forward.

I would prefer Vancouver, but literally any other Canadian city I would be fine with. At least have 2 Canadian teams.

Plus vets are not sticking in the league like they used too.