NBA Commissioner: expansion inevitable and Seattle a prime candidate

The idea of the NBA expanding to other U.S. cities is raised every few years. In a new interview with C.J. McCollum, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that an expansion of the league is inevitable and will happen in the near future.

Smith added that Seattle remains among the most attractive expansion locations and is always at the top of the list of cities when discussions of expansion are held.

“I think it’s just a question of when the right time is to seriously start thinking about expansion,” Silver said in an interview on The Player’s Tribune. “Think about the state we’re in the league right now where [it is] amazing to me that, coming off of these Finals, you have some fans saying, ‘There’s only one good team in the league.’

And I’m thinking, well, if people really believe that even though we have 450 of the best players in the world, and 450 players can only form one really good team, probably doesn’t make sense to expand in terms of dilution of talent.

Now I don’t really believe that, and I think these things correct themselves. And I don’t want to put a precise timeline on it, but it’s inevitable at some point we’ll start looking at growth of franchises, that’s always been the case in this league, and Seattle will no doubt be on a short list of cities we’ll look at.”

NBA fans will remember Seattle has a key city in the growth of the league over the last four decades. Indeed, the Seattle Supersonics were a fixture franchise in the NBA from 1967 to 2008 and were noted for having some of the best fans in Basketball.

However, despite winning the 1979 championship and topping three Western Conference finals, the Supersonics have moved into the history of hoops. The franchise was relocated to Oklahoma and rebranded as the Oklahoma City Thunder. Seattle is now among the most prominent U.S. cities without an NBA franchise.