[Charania] A lot of “chatter” about the Minnesota Timberwolves to be the team to be moved to the Eastern Conference in the event of a two-team expansion. Memphis and New Orleans will have “a case” as well.
Minnesota is the only answer. they are so far away geographically from every other western team and quite close to most of the central division.
Memphis and New Orleans are relatively much closer to Texas and OKC
OKC is the closest team to us in our conference. If they don’t fix that, they don’t want me to follow the NBA.
Believe if the TWolves move East their furthest Divisional rival would be less travel than their current closest Divisional rival in the West.
Their furthest CONFERENCE rival in the east (Miami) would be about the same travel as them going to Portland.
That’s the thing Adam Silver hates Minnesota
In the same division as OKC, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Portland.
wtf, NBA?
Its easier to travel in the NFL since you only play once a week, but the NFC West had San Francisco and Atlanta in the same division for 31 years.
Just a 5 hour flight between division rivals.
Remember when the braves were in the NL West?
I know you prolly know, but It’s just a reality of where American cities and population centers are, geography’s weird.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NBATalk/comments/1m7ojsa/nba_allteams_map/
There’s 13 states without an NBA team West of Mississippi, all of them pretty large states geographically. Meanwhile there’s 6 teams around the great lakes + Toronto, and 5 within a days drive of each other in the Northeast. Add in where the league started and stuff, there were just always gonna be tons of teams in the Northeast
The San Francisco 49ers were once in a division with St. Louis, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Carolina.
Geography is hard!
Dallas and Phoenix were in the NFC East w/ NY, Philly, D.C.
Memphis and New Orleans might be farther east but at least they have Western Conference teams that are reasonably close. Memphis is about 400 miles from OKC and Dallas, New Orleans is about 300 miles to Houston, and Memphis and New Orleans are 350 miles from each other. Just as importantly, they aren’t much closer to the nearest Eastern Conference teams.
The closest Western Conference team to Minneapolis are Denver, OKC, and Memphis which are all about 700 miles away. Meanwhile Minneapolis to Milwaukee is about 300 miles and Chicago is about 350.
Minny is the obvious move
They have to move another team though, if both Las Vegas and Seattle will be added.
The question then is whether it makes more sense for Memphis or NOLA. It’s probably Memphis
No they don’t. Move Minnesota to the East and it’s 16 teams in the East, 14 in the West. Add 2 expansion teams to the West and it’s 16 each.
Minnesota is the obvious and only answer hopefully ANT is still on the team would bring another competitive team
It would be hard to imagine Ant leaving before his next contract so I would guess he is there
Please 🥺 for us East coast fans. I’m too old to stay awake for 11:30 tipping times.
Please not Timberwolves
We want giannis vs ant four times a year
I sure don’t. Doc Rivers has put us through enough pain
Wish granted. Timberwolves move eat but Doc retires and Giannis is traded for peanuts
To the wolves
They really still plan on keeping Doc another season? Disaster of a hire after firing someone in Griffin who was still growing in the role.
If griffin was any good, why does he still not have a job. I’m not saying doc is any better but griffin also was not gonna be the guy.
Perhaps he has other factors like wanting to watch his children play in college. He has a son playing and daughter got drafted to WNBA. Hard to watch them with the coaching schedule. Maybe he doesn’t want a setup job with a tanking team after what just happen and will pick a staff he views as trying to win.
About that…
I could bet on Kalshi right now Giannis won’t be a Buck by then
Ant vs Ryan Rollins you mean
Those Knicks/Wolves matchups will be fun
Why not, might be able to develop a fun rivalry
Please yes we’re always one of the teams that has to travel the most every season
I agree
Makes sense for local rivalries.
Vikings have played GB (MIL), DET and CHI for decades. Twins play DET, CLE, and Chisox.
It’s gotta be Minnesota or at the very least they need to be in a different division afterward
Even though it makes no sense for any of those three teams to be in the western conference, it’s gotta be Timberwolves or* Grizzlies that move to the east. Louisiana is at least touching a western conference state, lol.
Only 1 team moves
Oops sorry, I meant “or” not “and.” I’ll change that.
only one team is moving east,and its gotta be Minnesota. They’re closer to like 5 east teams than they are to any west team
Yeah I meant to say “or.” I changed it.
But I agree, Timberwolves is the best choice, second best would be Grizzlies.
I still think New Orleans belongs in the east geographically, but they have closer proximity to western conference teams so I don’t think they fit as well as the other two would.
2 teams are being added to the west, so the scale would be 17-15. So only 1 team moves east
Yeah I changed it to “or,” which is what I meant to say. I hope people can see that now. Thank you though. I appreciate you looking out. 👍
Recreating the NFC North in hoops will be so fkn cool
Hear me out:
Northern and Southern Conferences.
This will solve none of the problems of teams being located incredibly far away from other teams in their own conference, but it WILL solve the problem of teams that are clearly in the Eastern half of the country being in the “Western” conference.
Time zones matter for scheduling
Nah
I’m just some guy and not anyone with sports business know-how or a shitload of money to force a team in a market unequipped for it, but I don’t get why they can’t just tap a market that’s already in the East?
Like, fuck Vegas. Why not bring back the Pittsburgh Condors? Or give New Jersey a team again?
Not trying to be too cynical here, but nobody is buying an NBA basketball team for love of the fucking game. This is a business investment for them. Value of professional sports teams has blown up in the last 10 years or so, and that is why they’re considering expansion, no other reason.
I’m just some guy and not anyone with sports business know-how or a shitload of money to force a team in a market unequipped for it
That’s why I said that^ part
I’ll try to put it simply. Why is a house worth more in Seattle than Pittsburgh?
[deleted]
Why would a second team be moved?
Thousands of Minnesotans in Rasho Nesterovic jerseys jumping for joy at a Caribou Coffee right about now
Some day 3 conferences of 11 or 12 teams- E, C, W.
BOS, NY, BKN, PHI, WAS, CHA, ATL, ORL MIA, TOR?,
+ 2: BUF, BAL, (ROC, SYR) lost NBA teams, PROV, RI was in the BAA, PIT, VIR were in the ABA.. The ABA Nets were in LI- 4 million permanent residents and in NJ before that. MTL wants one with all the new French players.
CLE, CHI, DET, MIL, MIN, IND, MEM, NOP, SAS, DAL, HOU,
+1: CIN, STL, KC (OM), (Waterloo IA) had NBA teams. LOU (KY) was strong in the ABA.
LAC, LAK, SAC, SF, PHO. UTA, DEN, POR, OKC.
+3: SEA, SD, OAK, VAN, had NBA/ABA teams, Anaheim ABA. …TUCS, ALBU, LAS V, …
E-W have 2 x 6-game road trips to far coast N/S.
C can do 3 x 4 or 4 x 3.
48 inter-conf. 33 intra- 3 v/ each team.
So much less travel… zero b/t/b’s; mid-season break or tournament. 4 from each conf. make playoffs: play-in for bottom 4.
Seeding 1-16, re-seed after early rounds. WIth reduced travel 1-16 less burdensome. Gives strongest conference middle teams chance for the 5-seed, no need to tank.
Could also do 3 Conf w/N-S divisions of 6. Winner to playoffs, home adv. 1’st round guaranteed. Other 10 slots divided.
Minnesota and Portland are in the same division. That’s stupid. Fix that.
If it’s really Seattle & Vegas, then there’ll be four 8-team divisions:
Only one who really gets the shaft here is Washington. The other rub is Utah & Denver being in a different division than Phoenix, but que sera sera.
(also, divisions don’t matter)
I think divisions only matter in terms of ensuring that some historic geographic rivals (like Sixers-Celtics) will always be playing each other 4x a year.
Your division breakdown is about as fair as it’s going to get. Only Washington is out of place but if not them, then it would be someone else. It’s like how the two Florida teams got stuck being grouped with Canadian and other Northeastern teams in the NHL, it is what it is.
They would go to 4 divisions right? unless they want 1 to have 5 teams.
I’m confused by your math. It’s either 8 divisions of 4 or 4 divisions of 8.
Pretty sure they mean 4 divisions of 4 per conference
NBA currently has 30 teams. They want to have 32 with 2 conferences which is the same as the NFL. 2 conferences each with 16 teams would require 4 divisions of 4 teams each. if they stayed with 3 conferences then 1 division in each actually has 6 and the others 5. Either way they will be making 2 new divisions to have even.
if they stayed with 3 conferences
I assume you meant divisions. And yeah, if they expand to 32 they’re not keeping 5 team divisions.
Divisions are already almost irrelevant. Teams play 30 games againt the other conference, 4 against the 4 in their division, and 3.6 versus the other 10 in conference.
In the NFL they play division rivals twice every year, and 11 of the other 28 teams once, in a rotation.
Division dont mean anything in the nba
Not to the playoff standings but they impact schedule making. Teams play their divisions the most, it would impact back to backs and traveling by having the close teams together.
If they are smart, they will use this re-alignment to change that.
It means something in tie breakers- division leader gets the advantage. Might mean something in the West 3-6 seed traffic jam we have now
They matter for scheduling and they screw the Trailblazers more than anyone.
Tonight we play at 5pm in Minnesota. “Division Rival” 4th game of an East Coast road trip.
Despite the fact that Sacramento and San Francisco have teams.
You play 4 teams in your own conference only 3 times. In the past one of those teams has been Sacramento. The team is geographically closest to Portland. How does that make sense.
Imagine New York only traveling to Philly once, but having to travel to Denver twice.
Take Minnesota please. As a trailblazers we need some relief in the west!
Timberwolves are just the most logical choice . Will make their travel schedule sooo much easier.
Minnesota in a great lakes/central division makes the most sense, they have no natural rivalries in the west lol
But I would miss our “divisional rivalry games” that we play on our way home from East Coast trips and the games start before I get off work.
God I can’t wait for realignment. Why we were never grouped with the Kings and Warriors will never make sense.
By people in the league, he means strangers on Twitter. He is saying exactly what any casual would say about this over the last several years. This man is by far the most vapid famous sports media professional.
I always have to point out that Minnesotaa closest current division opponent is further away then the furthest appointment would be if they were over into the easts central division.
It’s not solely about how close Memphis, Minnesota, and New Orleans are to the western teams. It’s also about how close they are to the eastern teams. In that sense New Orleans and Memphis have a legit argument as they are literally more eastern. The divisions argument probably makes it a lock for Minnesota to get the selection.
They should be. Common sense if any american has ever looked at a map
“a case” = corruption
Send Minnesota send the Grizz. Goddamn don’t send the Pels the west is already tough enough.
They need to move the best team of these options to the east. The conferences are so unbalanced right now.
Can we move San Antonio East? Lol
Pelicans it is