Last year, NBA commissioner Adam Silver made headlines when he stated that adding expansion teams is “inevitable” in the near future.He added that Seattle would “no doubt” be on the short list of cities considered.While Seattle seems like a logical choice, the league most likely won’t add just one team. In order to remain uniformity across the two conferences, two franchises would likely be added. International locations like Mexico City and Vancouver have been rumored possibilities, as have domestic cities like Louisville, Austin, Anaheim, Kansas City and Las Vegas.However, one city in particular out of that group might be emerging as a frontrunner alongside Seattle.Since Team USA is currently conducting a minicamp in Vegas, a number of players reflected on how great of an environment the city would be to play in. Since Sin City recently added the Knights of the NHL and Aces of the WNBA, it’d be a natural fit and there’s already a stadium in place that can house an NBA team. The Oakland Raiders of the NFL will also be making their move there in the coming years.
Team USA weighs in
“They’ve got hockey here, and they’ve got WNBA here, the NFL will be here in a couple of years,” Paul George of the Oklahoma City Thunder said, per Mark Anderson of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I think Vegas is built for an NBA team. I think they should be here. It has everything. It’s easy access from the airport down to the Strip. I don’t see why not.”
“Even just from adding an NHL team, they’re doing great things,” James Harden of the Houston Rockets said. “It’s built for it. Obviously, the money is there, but I think the fan support is there as well. We saw that in hockey.”
”I think players like coming here,” Finals MVP Kevin Durant noted. “I’m sure whatever team they put together would be successful here because of so much support and so many great resources, and it would add on another level of excitement for the NBA, for the game of basketball, so I’m all for it.”
However, Detroit Pistons forward Blake Griffin brought up a few concerns.
“The hockey team here did really, really well,” Griffin said. “I don’t know if you consider it a sports town because of everything that’s going on here, but I think people appreciate sports here. I think all sports would do well here. It’s probably something in the future, but I think everybody realizes how much basketball brings to a city, and I don’t know that it would be easy to take a team away from a different city to bring one here.”
Judging by the movement of franchises in other sports as well as the success of the Las Vegas Summer League, it appears as though the NBA will have a strong look at adding a team there when Silver and the league office believe the time is right.