Didn’t know that about the NFL but love this rule

Didn’t realize that, terrific rule.

They should make it that if you buy a team, you have to put $2 billion is escrow that is forfeited to the city that you leave if you try and relocate before 10 years of ownership is up.

Fuck these parasitic billionaires wanting to benefit from socialist ideals when it suits them.

This is either a newer rule or there are enough loopholes for it to not matter. I say this because Stan Kroenke became majority owner of the Rams in 2010 and he moved them from STL to LA in 2016.

zero chance the NBA passes on charging $8b+ in expansion fees to let Dundon move the Blazers to either of those cities

Seattle is a non-starter; unless Dundon is building an arena of his own up here Climate Pledge is controlled by the Kraken group who wants their own NBA team

IMO the Blazers are being set up as the Vegas team if expansion doesn’t end up going through. I think the NBA absolutely wants a team there, and doesn’t really care one way or the other if the PNW has any teams.

You aren’t going to win over Seattle fans by relocating from their neighbor. 

While that’s a fact, the owners did vote “unanimously in March to explore the addition of a franchise in Las Vegas, as well as one in Seattle. Also, the Blazers’ current lease runs through 2030, exansion will be sooner.

https://www.hitc.com/new-details-revealed-as-8bn-las-vegas-nba-expansion-franchise-race-heats-up/

Yeah I think hitting one of those premium markets is probably the most logical conclusion.

I would never watch an NBA game for the rest of my life.

Nobody would blame you for abandoning the NBA if the Blazers moved. The good news is that actually moving them is a lot more difficult than it seems because there just aren’t a lot of places in the US left for the NBA to realistically expand to now that Seattle/Vegas have been locked in for expansion.

Same, I’ve been a lifelong fan and id be gone for sure. Would probably stop following nba altogether. It would be horrible.

Same. I’d be mostly out on the NBA as a whole mostly because of the taste it would leave in my mouth to take the team away from Oregon. While we technically have major league teams in soccer and the WNBA there’s nothing like the Blazers as far as popularity goes in this city. And if they’re taken away there’s barely a chance a team comes back in the next 30 years, if ever, and that’s what kills me the most. I live for basketball. Don’t take away the biggest team this city has ever had.

I’m Im not sure I could follow the team still…

I know I wouldn’t. My current favorite team is whoever is playing the Thunder.

I used to be an A’s fan. I also used to watch baseball. fuck john fisher

Dude I’ll boycott the NBA fuck them. We love basketball so much, those slimy fucks how dare they. The Blazers belong to US they do not belong to Dundon or any owner

He has no allegiance or ties to Raleigh, he’ll go wherever the money is.

As a lifelong Lakers fan I would be devastated, just like I was when the Sonics left. Yeah there’s been more animosity between us and the Blazers over the years due to repeated playoff matchups, but shit, it’s obvious that the fans in that area are passionate as all hell. To see them have a team ripped out from under them for the second time (third if you count the Grizzlies, though they weren’t nearly as established) would be awful.

He should be forced to take them to some tiny shithole like Galveston texas and change the name to the oil thieves, and Portland be given an expansion team. Fuck that bum.

I’d be devastated for you guys, I still hate the loss of the SuperSonics. Im a pistons fan, and there was a time after the last owner, Bill Davidson died and his wife was selling the team, the Vegas sharks were circling. Luckily we got out of it with an owner committed to keeping the team in Detroit. I bleed pistons blue red and white, but I also love basketball as a whole. Fuck Tom Dundon. Im with y’all!

I feel confident saying I will just fully bail on the sport if the blazers leave. It’ll become a “watch the finals if it’s on a bar I was already at,” level of interest. It’ll destroy me too much to try to to stay invested.

What is the point of someone spending billions to buy a team just to be as stingy as possible?? And then threaten to relocate the team. This guys literally a sleeper agent

I’d be surprised if any Blazers fan continued to follow the team. I’m from Seattle and consider myself a free agent since then, following the teams and players who I enjoy watching. But my real passion is hating the Thunder hahaha.

Honestly, the NBA is lucky for people like me, because most people I know in Seattle just stopped following NBA all together. It sucks because I can’t really talk to my friends about basketball. I have a 14-year-old nephew and I noticed that he and his friends love sports, but it’s strictly MLB and NFL with a little bit of NHL sprinkled in.

What drives me nuts is how arrogant NBA leadership has been about all this. They act like “oh we can always bring a team to Seattle when it’s convenient for us”, but I don’t think they realize what a bridge they have burned. They lost a generation of fans and it’s going to take a generation to bring them all back. And it’s a shame because Seattle really is an enthusiastic sports city - we’ve supported the Mariners pretty well through decades of futility. I kind of hope the new team struggles with attendance/interest so they learn their lesson. Of course if that happens, they’ll just blame the fans like they did when moving the team.

Yup I’d be done. As a Portlander and lifelong Blazer fan I don’t think I could get behind the NBA anymore.

My dad is a generational Oregonian, but we lived in Wisconsin when I was younger so I was raised a Packers fan… so at least I have somewhere to go.

I’d probably just go full NFL and stop watching basketball. My fiance and I are likely moving back to WI next spring, if our kids end up basketball fans I would go Bucks I guess, but I just would be so devastated to lose this team.

When we moved back to Oregon my family had season tickets for almost 10 years until I moved to NYC after college. It’s one of the great unifiers between family and friends. This team has local roots very comparable to the Packers, Bills, etc… where it really is the one show in town.

I love the Timbers but it isn’t the same level of competition. The NBA would be losing one of the most unique legacy markets with a really fun history and a loyal fanbase. And for what?

If they aren’t going to LV or Seattle they just become another small market team with no local connection, since whoever they’d go to would have no claim to our history in my eyes.

Portland has taken enough of a beating the past 6 years since COVID, this is the last thing we can afford to lose.

It’s always a shame when a storied franchise moves.

I stopped being a Nets/Basketball fan for like a decade because they moved, and they’re not even that much further from me. If the Blazers leave nobody from the PNW should give the NBA any of their attention.

They already have the hornets and cocks, no chance they get another team.

nailed it

Well it was atleast half correct.

Large? No. Untapped? Yes

It’s not big but they had actual proof that they would show up to support a team.

BC or Washington? :P

In all seriousness, a billionaire trying to exploit the taxpayers of Portland is not going to have it easier in Vancouver BC.

We are on the verge of losing our 1st place MLS team because the city and province won’t give demanded financial concessions to the soccer club.

Already tried it once, and that’s another small-ish market. Canada as a whole seems pretty devoted to the Raptors and Vancouver isn’t big enough to get a lot of away team fans like Vegas will be.

That’d be my realistic guess tbh.

Too close to Seattle

That’s another thing in this. The Timbers have never fully recovered from us fully discovering how much of an asshole Merritt Paulson is.

KC/StL and Cincy seem like the only legit options with big enough TV markets and sports fanbases to support an NBA team. Additionally, neither of them have been clamoring for a team. Cincy with its proximity to UK and basketball history seems the most viable alt. Still a stretch. Dundon is a shithead who doesn’t really care about sports and only sees the team in business terms. Doubt he cares at all about the fans in Portland. Shame because the Blazers are part of Portland and it would be a massive loss to move them out of that city.

Those all seem like lateral moves at best

Excluding Seattle and Vegas (which are big enough to merit a NBA team as well as other pro sports franchises), I’ve always thought that the NBA would want to expand into cities without pro sports competition. So I think that would knock out a lot of those cities that you mentioned.

I live in Louisville, so I’m incredibly biased in thinking that they could support a team, but a huge issue right now is that UofL has an exclusivity clause on the arena in town that they would have no incentive to break.

Many of those are part of territories of another team. Cincinnati, Columbus and Pittsburgh can be vetoes by teams in the same state.

Tennessee is not a two-team state.

The Hornets might actually sue over that, it would severely devalue their team

Would that work with Charlotte that close? Can North Carolina sustain 2 teams?

There’s hardly a .01% chance this happens… But if it did, it’d be the weirdest thing ever. As a Hornets fan who lives in Raleigh, I’d just much rather have an MLB team in N.C. than another NBA team to be honest.

I feel like this is 0% likely. He’s trying to make a bunch of money and that’s easier to do by moving to literally any other city.

That’s the obvious target, Hornets market be damned 

Having an NHL team also means having an existing modern arena though

Wizards would object on territorial grounds most likely

Mavs and Spurs will never let Austin get a team as long as they’re still in Dallas/SA lol

Nashville is within Memphis Grizzlies territory it’s a no go. Austin is within the Spurs territory, also a no go.

Nashville?? What about Grizzlies?

Austin?? Sure Texas is going to let another team in the market. Mavs, Spurs, and Rockets just like “ok”.

Jersey Towns? Like more Knicks/Nets who gives a shit?

Boston owns CT.

None of these are real threats.

I’m not sure if the NBA is comfortable with the precedent of states other than Texas, Florida, New York and California getting more than one team. The four most populous states are big enough to absorb multiple teams without diluting market share. North Carolina? That would devalue the Hornets significantly.

I don’t think that would make nearly as much money. Line must go up, not just not go down. 

Baltimore would get an NBA team before Pittsburgh.

But the real answer is KC/Louisville, maybe St. Louis.

This man isn’t moving the team to Seattle or Vegas (they will get expansion teams) because of the taxes/cost alone.

I’d like to see it happen since you might end up with one of the most passionate fanbases, but they’d be a small market team relative just to the other small market teams. Louisville’s metro area is half the population of San Antonio’s. Only way I see it happening is relocating the Grizzlies from Memphis.