Don’t forget about the nightlife that young socialites love. If Harden’s available, then I think he can get a second wind by being drafted by Vegas.

You’re not wrong but man Vegas is a hellhole. I’d imagine some rules will be in place for the players and what’s off limits etc. I also imagine some rules in contracts about where players can live as well. We will see someone fuck up, that’s a guarantee. That is going to happen to both for home and away players.

Adam silver will break everything he doesnt care. Foster is still reffing. Ads on jerseys. Partnering with gambling everywhere. There is no end to his greed and no beginning to his morals

I think the bobcats and Vancouver grizzles would disagree with u

No they weren’t. Vegas just correctly identified underused players, took advantage of teams who didn’t realize what they had and implemented good systems and tactics to max out their roster.

No they werent. The golden knights were past his prime MAF plus james neal and a couple of 2nd liners then a lot of 3rd liners

Before the season started every outlet, analyst etc had Vegas near the bottom. No one had that gang of “misfits” having any sort of success

Not sure if you were on reddit that year but most people thought Vegas would finish dead last.

Is there a problem with that?

And the WNBA is not the NBA, and 1995 NBA is not 2027 NBA. This whole discussion is based on comparing very different leagues

It’s in the overall league’s interest to have a competitive team and more likely to be successful. Also, if I’m paying 10 billion for a team some assurances won’t be utter trash for a decade.

No duhh but i promise you the nba didnt want a vegas team till they saw the sucess of the golden knights. In fact we can confirm that

Dont be stupid the leagues pay attention to each other

The NBA will obviously adjust to the latest meta in other US leagues, and apply the same concept to their expansion, because it makes sense.

Were you alive for the Heatled and Durant-Warriors era?

They would be rigged claims regardless because people hate us lol definitely better than getting trolled for losing though

That I can live with.

Yup, they’re going to somehow manage to rig and entire season and playoff run because of a team partnership. I’m sure nobody will notice, every other team will happily play along, and it won’t tarnish the league partnerships with every other gambling site.

Also, 24 of the 30 teams have partnerships with casinos and/or gambling companies. This includes your Warriors, who has a partnership with Betway.

so what? you’d rather not win?

Bucks won the title in their 3rd year, the fastest expansion in the USA to win a title before yesterday

Golden knights even made the Stanley cup their first season, won it their 6th.

Idk if the NBA needs to match that but it’s crazy how much they handicapped those teams in 95

Carolina Panthers: NFC Championship appearance in their second (‘96) season; lost to eventual SB champs, Green Bay in the NFCCG

Jacksonville Jaguars: AFC Championship appearance in their second (‘96) season; lost to Super Bowl losers, New England, who got beat by the GB team mentioned above, in the AFCCG

The NFL would go on to change the expansion draft rules, which led to the next two expansion teams (Cleveland Browns, followed by the Houston Texans) to wallow in 4 to 5 win seasons for the first 10+ years of their existence……

I’m totally not bitter about it at all……

We would’ve been the Charlotte flight if it wasn’t for Bob Johnson, the guy who owned the bobcats

Seattle golden showers

Wait

I would assume Charlotte fans claim any history which took place in Charlotte ? It’s wack to claim history that didn’t take place in your city (cough Lakers claiming Minneapolis cough). I feel like this should transcend even through new franchises. Like the new Super Sonics should be able to claim the old Super Sonics history, not the Thunder. Frankly so should the Twolves claim Minneapolis Lakers history.

The Ravens claim Johnny Unitas but not the Browns part of the history. The Nationals claim the Washington Senators (pt 1 and pt2 ) history. The Twins and Rangers shouldn’t be able to, etc.

Charlotte claims all stuff in charlotte whether they’re hornets or bobcat. Statistically they are the same team. So the hornets have won a playoff series, just not since 2002 when they were still the original team. But they lost that team and its players that same year and havent won a playoff series since. The old hornets / pelicans have won multiple series with the latest being 2018

The Hornets and Pelicans came to an agreement to where the Hornets could keep all the history in Charlotte when Charlotte changed back to the Hornets from the Bobcats

The Bulls also lost Magic to a coinflip, but it eventually worked out for them since there’s no way they would have been bad enough with Magic to draft Jordan.

The Cavs and the pelicans were tied with the most losses the year Anthony Davis was drafted. Cavs won the coin flip for like 4 extra combinations but then Nola won Davis with their number set. Kyrie and early Davis would’ve been crazy. Wouldn’t have gotten the other 2 number one picks but wouldn’t’ve needed them

The Bucks also got arguably the second best player in the draft in the 4th round.

You’re correct, he didn’t. Vince Carter did.

Their GM did an incredible job taking advantage of teams being unprepared for the new/surprise expansion draft rules and making numerous side deals to not pluck certain players off other teams for additional picks and whatnot. Super well done by them.

They went to the Stanley cup in their first season.

VGK weren’t projected to be good, though. They fleeced teams trying not to lose certain players in expansion rules, and built a high floor team (more effective in hockey than basketball) with a complimentary playstyle. It was only seen as easy when it worked, most thought they’d be in the basement.

This is exactly how the Valkyries won. Bunch of really solid role players, bench depth, and great coaching. Gabby Williams wasn’t considered a superstar at the beginning of the season but she stepped tf up and became one for them

NFL but the jags and ravens were good out the gate.

What makes winning easier for a new team in the WNBA is there’s a lot less teams. If that were the NBA you’d have way more legit talent and young promising players that are stashed on teams benches that would be available.

The problem is that in the NBA you have to have a #1 guy to actually be competitive. Those guys won’t be in the expansion draft.

It really comes down to the expansion teams nailing a top 3 pick and getting a superstar. If they can do that then they’ll compete. If they can’t then they’ll be the Hornets.

They definitely didn’t. Major League sports make a lot less money when Canadians play in the playoffs.

With the draft lottery reform, it’ll be much less likely that an expansion team at the bottom of the league immediately racks up a few top picks. They’ll be in the mix along with the others, which I think is fair. They’ll need some sort of ladder out of mediocrity/sucking, just not at the cost of stunting other teams’ ability to improve, too

They wanted the expansion money not necessarily more competition from new teams. They wanted to delay them from being good for as long as possible.

I mean, the Bucks won the Finals in their second year. What’s the problem, exactly?

Go nuclear: protect only 5 and allow to select more than 1 player from a team.

I want drama.

Are you kidding me? Aja Wilson is doing Wilt stuff.

Sounds very similar to the Golden Knights in their inaugural season in the NHL.

They made quite a few side deals to not take certain guys to get extra picks/players and everyone said they’d be awful and made fun of them.

Then they made the finals their first year, won the cup in I believe their 5th year, made the finals last year and are one of the most successful franchises since entering the league.

I’m assuming Gabby Williams was a FA signing right?

They have no stars. No one on the team made the all star game, only WNBA champions to ever have done that.

Certainly Lacob put a lot more money into everything else - scouting, talent development, conditioning & training facilities, coaching, fan experience - and being the owner of the most successful NBA team of the past decade with a new money-minting arena helped in a way that the other WNBA owners just did not / cannot match. But even with all that, even if Vegas or Seattle enter on their own, it’s likely that 240 of the most valuable NBA players will be protected instead of 72. That alone will keep an NBA expansion team from being that good that quickly.

But because there are only so many teams in the WNBA and there is no development league, the average role player is a better quality player than they would be for an NBA expansion team

Didn’t kiah Stokes win a chip with aces last year? I thought she was a free agent.

They did not take Stokes in the expansion draft. She just signed this past summer and only because their planned starting center, Iliana Rupert, went on maternity leave.

They did not take Stokes in the expansion draft. She just signed this past summer and only because their planned starting center, Iliana Rupert, went on maternity leave.

There are probably still diamonds out there for the NBA. Jokic was a 2nd round pick for example.

The Portland fire and Toronto tempo I refer to here

Yea I agree, they are a team which is far far better than the sum of their parts in the best way possible

Tempo were playing pretty well to start and then we just got injured like crazy from like 1 month in unfortunately.

Also didn’t have much of a frontcourt due to a mix of competition in the expansion draft, Shakira Austin (All-W 2nd, All-D this year) signing an offer here but Mystics retaining her in RFA, and Temi having a pretty down year as someone who was supposed to be a key signing after her season with GSV.

Britney our co-star & probably best defender, missed a few months with I think a foot injury. As did our cornerstone draft pick. By the time Britney was getting better, we were already prob not making the playoffs so didn’t make sense to chance it. We could score but the defence was pretty porous & undersized

Portland won more than expected but by comparison their rosterbuilding from last offseason was thought of as the longer-term approach. Going for upside rather than floor

She has to get some hardware. Steph didn’t get promoted widely until he won a championship.

Yeah, though Hayes was a FA in y1 and the team was certainly decent as they made the playoffs. Gabby is just a different caliber of player.

Hayes was certainly an important piece but the ceiling for this team changed dramatically with the addition of Williams

Hayes was signed because her team didn’t think she was important. Iirc, WNBA has to select a pool of players they want to keep, the expansion team can pick the rest that are not in the pool.

pacers PG was different

I think you guys will all be surprised. The NHL had huge success with the Vegas expansion team, who made the Finals (and lost to my Capitals 😎) in their first season. That was thanks in large party to some pretty friendly expansion rules. The Seattle expectation hasn’t been nearly that good, but they’re still competitive.

The NBA is going to follow that mould, because it’s bad for the sport for expansion teams to be ass.

Fanbases don’t make the rules

that might be true but without a genuine superstar, we would’ve been a doormat for a long time. especially with the incompetent front office in charge.

Imagine Lowry as a Raptor, might have become the greatest Raptor ever and help lead them to a chip. I guess we’ll never know though.

No way anyone was selecting Kyle with the 1st pick. The only one in hindsight and at the time was Aldridge

That sure is a week draft. Roy’s knees were falling apart before he entered the NBA. Lowry took a long time before he became a different maker.

Aldridge sure but Roy was a reach at number 1 he fell to 6 for a reason and got traded even. The highest Roy should have been picked was number 3. You lose all credibility when you bring up Lowry no one wanted him after 2 seasons.

LaMarcus Aldridge was the obvious pick, him and Bosh were friends or something like that. Brandon Roy and Lowry would have been big reaches at the time. I wasn’t against the idea of trading down for Roy.

Was pissed when Colangelo selected Bargnani but everyone could see it coming a mile away, he was all about filling the roster with international players at the time despite the Bosh-Aldridge connection.

Still, of the 18 lottery picks we’ve had, Raptors have been super unlucky with the draft. Only getting #1 in 2006 is tough. Only drafted 2nd once, never 3rd, and 4 twice.

Have to doubt they pick Kyle at #1.

I think we should have been given the opportunity to see, instead of the quiet gutting of Canada that happened in major league sports since the Jays won and NHL ownership change in the 90s.

Its tough though because the may also limit the use of the full salary cap for the expansion teams so they would need to be smart about taking on large contracts.

So every team had their 1-6, while Valkyries had 7-7-7-7-9 and somehow made playoffs then became champ with their Finals MVP having a career avg of 9.3 ppg.

Shows more how sucky every other team is at talent spotting/development.

Any team made up of the fourth best player from every team would immediately become the best team in the NBA.

That’s insane. That would make an expansion team a playoff team in their first year. Imagine being able to poach the 4th most valued player on every team, I’m going to use the Eastern conference only as an example to facilitate this but the starting lineup would look like:

PG Jalen Suggs

SG Kyshawn George

SF Peyton Watson

PF Obi Toppin

C Mitchell Robinson

With a bench of Jamal Shead, Landry Shamet, Pelle Larson, Aaron Wiggins, Day’Ron Sharpe

Regarding Lacob, he did the same way when he got the Warriors: get the GM (Ohemma Nyanin) and her team whatever support they need, and he gave them one directive: win a chip in 5 years. Afterward, he just let the team run and not meddle in teams’ affair (I think he learned that lesson from Kuminga fiasco).

Also, the team technically isn’t the greatest in terms of star power. Gabby is a good player, but she’s never known to be this good offensively (she was known as a defense player first), and she was playing in Europe before signing with the Vals. Its just literally the same vibe as 2011 Mavs NBA Finals run. One man (in this case, woman) offensive army, with the entire support cast helping her to the end.

Nah that’s not fully accurate though. Valks didn’t get her from the expansion draft—they signed her the second year in a regular FA deal.

That’s the thing though, big impact free agency is pretty much dead in the NBA.

So chicago had her and angel and botched both of them?