Good morning. It’s opening day in the NBA. If you’re looking for preview content, I have:
But today, we’re going to talk about NBA EXPANSION.
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Storm in the Mountains, Albert Bierstadt
In his annual preseason media call, commissioner Adam Silver said for the first time in his tenure that the NBA is considering expansion. It doesn’t appear that anything is imminent, but given Silver’s signal I bet it comes up in the next round of collective bargaining talks in a couple years, which means the league would need to do its due diligence now.
The rationale for expanding: it’s a cash infusion to the existing 30 NBA franchise owners due to massive expected expansion fees. You charge the new franchisees the average value of an existing NBA team — is $1.5 billion out of the realm of possibility? — and split the proceeds among the 30 incumbents. Two teams, maybe $3 billion — that’s $100 million for each current team owner. And all you have to do is face marginally more competition for players, playoff spots and titles, and give up your seventh and eighth men in the expansion drafts.
Seattle would certainly be one of the two expansion teams, especially since no current teams are in play for relocation in the immediate future. The second team could be Mexico City (the home run swing), Louisville (which would be a very NBA move — going to a market with basketball history/love but no NFL, MLB or NHL team) or Vancouver (righting another wrong, boosting the West Coast T.V. schedule, doubling down on Canadian successes).
Expansion means realignment
Assuming two new teams and Louisville as the 32nd team, you could break the league into four 8-team divisions like this:
Pacific
Seattle SuperSonics
Portland Trail Blazers
Sacramento Kings
Golden State Warriors
L.A. Lakers
L.A. Clippers
Utah Jazz
Phoenix Suns
Continental (I have no idea what to call this middle-ish potpourri … Louisiana Purchase?)
Denver Nuggets
Oklahoma City Thunder
San Antonio Spurs
Houston Rockets
Dallas Mavericks
New Orleans Pelicans
Memphis Grizzlies
Kentucky Colonels
North
Minnesota Timberwolves
Milwaukee Bucks
Chicago Bulls
Indianapolis Pacers
Cleveland Cavaliers
Toronto Raptors
Detroit Pistons
Boston Celtics
Atlantic
New York Knicks
Brooklyn Nets
Philadelphia 76ers
Washington Wizards
Charlotte Hornets
Atlanta Hawks
Miami Heat
Orlando Magic
This can give you two natural conferences (Pacific and Continental in the West, North and Atlantic in the East). If teams play three games in conference and home-and-homes with the other conference, that gets you to a 77-game season. A minor step back from the current 82-game normal season.
More divisions? More divisions
The other option, which I prefer, is to go with eight 4-team divisions.
Big Sky
Seattle SuperSonics
Portland Trail Blazers
Denver Nuggets
Utah Jazz
California
Golden State Warriors
Sacramento Kings
L.A. Clippers
L.A. Lakers
Sun West
Phoenix Suns
San Antonio Spurs
Dallas Mavericks
Houston Rockets
Southeast
New Orleans Pelicans
Atlanta Hawks
Orlando Magic
Miami Heat
Riverlands
Oklahoma City Thunder
Memphis Grizzlies
Louisville YUM!
Charlotte Hornets
Lakes
Minnesota Timberwolves
Milwaukee Bucks
Chicago Bulls
Indiana Pacers
Northeast
Boston Celtics
Toronto Raptors
Detroit Pistons
Cleveland Cavaliers
Atlantic
New York Knicks
Brooklyn Nets
Philadelphia 76ers
Washington Wizards
In both scenarios, Seattle regains its classic rival Portland in its division. Louisville’s natural rival is Indiana, but I can’t find a decent way to get them in the same division without really twisting things up for other teams at a 32-team league.
With this set-up, you have a huge problem trying to separate the divisions into conferences. I think you have to put the Lakes Division in the Western Conference. That’s not optimal.
To build the schedule, you play four games in division, three games against in-conference, non-division teams and home-and-homes with teams from the other conference for a total of 80 games. Probably still a few too many, to be honest.
What if we go BIGGER?
Here’s another idea: add three expansion teams (hello CdM), move to a 33-team league and split it into three 11-team conferences. Teams play in-conference rivals three times per season (30 games) and other teams twice (44 games) for a 74-game total regular season. Here are your conferences.
North
Toronto Raptors
Boston Celtics
New York Knicks
Brooklyn Nets
Philadelphia 76ers
Detroit Pistons
Cleveland Cavaliers
Minnesota Timberwolves
Chicago Bulls
Milwaukee Bucks
Washington Wizards
West
Seattle SuperSonics
Portland Trail Blazers
Sacramento Kings
Golden State Warriors
L.A. Clippers
L.A. Lakers
Phoenix Suns
Denver Nuggets
Utah Jazz
Oklahoma City Thunder
Dallas Mavericks
South
Indiana Pacers
Louisville Buckets
Charlotte Hornets
Memphis Grizzlies
Atlanta Hawks
Orlando Magic
Miami Heat
New Orleans Pelicans
San Antonio Spurs
Houston Rockets
Capitanes de Ciudad de México
This could probably be refined. San Antonio is, of course, far further west than Dallas. But the Spurs are the most natural rival for the Capitanes and the Mavericks are a natural long-term rival for the Thunder. (Thunder-Grizzlies is another natural rivalry that I eschew here.)
I really regret that the Suns aren’t in the same division as the Spurs and Capitanes. You could move Phoenix to the South, Indiana to the North and Minnesota to the West. But breaks up Indiana and Louisville, Phoenix and L.A., extends the immense crime that is the Timberwolves being separated from their natural Great Lakes region rivals and would force the southeast teams (Charlotte, Miami, Orlando) to travel to Arizona for divisional games. That seems crazier than sending the Pacers to CdM once a year.
Part of the problem is that time zones matter much more than latitude in terms of logistics. Plus, CdM is REALLY FAR from most NBA teams. While I think NBA franchise owners would love to open up that basketball market, the logistics are tough. The alignment and schedule becomes easier if you replace CdM with Vancouver, Kansas City or another centrally located city.
Besides, 33 teams is almost certainly not on the table. It’ll be interesting to see if the NBA can combine expansion with schedule changes (decrease to 72-76 games per season, plus play-ins) and the end of the 19-year-old age minimum for a major reform package to be implemented all at once.
Time to get back in the lab.
Contracts Galore
A whole mess of players signed extensions with their teams since Monday’s newsletter: O.G. Anunoby, Luke Kennard, Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz and Derrick White. These players would all have been restricted free agents next season, so I don’t actually think there’s a major impact on 2021 free agency except to knock down the potential of the class a touch.
The bigger revelation from the spate of deals is that teams are afraid of their players getting bid up in a free agency where so many teams have space. Given the state of the NBA vis a vis the pandemic, it’s a bit surprising that teams would commit so much many to players at this level in fear of restricted free agency. These look like deals made from a position of fear. I’m not sure that’s wise, but we’ll see.
Why Are They Trending? Miles Bridges Edition
The Charlotte Hornets’ Miles Bridges released a mixtape called Up the Score under the moniker RTB MB on Monday (RTB refers to his clique, apparently) and clips from a video released a month ago made the rounds as NBA Twitter and Rap Twitter collided to comment on Bridges’ skills and the likelihood that Hornets franchisee Michael Jordan enjoys it.
Here’s the full video for “Steph McGrady,” starring MB and RTB Capo. (Note: “Steph McGrady” [great track title] isn’t on the new mixtape, but there are songs called “JLo” and “Jason Williams,” so that’s good.)
Bridges’ references Trae Young’s passing and coach Dwane Casey. I’m not a snitch so I’m not going to point out what else he discusses. Pretty good track, all in all!
Schedule
That’s right: real live NBA basketball! That counts! All times Eastern.
Warriors at Nets, 7, TNT — Draymond Green is out
Clippers at Lakers, 10 TNT — to be proceeded by the Lakers’ ring ceremony, hope the Clippers can stay in the visitors’ locker room for that!
No League Pass Cup action. Of course.
Links
Zach Lowe’s annual tiers list, now on ESPN+. The Lakers are in a tier of their own. ($)
Ian O’Connor for ESPN on whether Tom Thibodeau is the hero the Knicks need.
The NBA is officially investigating the reports that Jerry West orchestrated some crooked deal to get Kawhi Leonard to the Clippers. That poor team.
The new franchise owner of the Utah Jazz wanted into the NBA so badly he almost put in a bid for the Timberwolves until his wife (also a Utah native) told him it was Jazz or bust. That’s a good life partner.
Nice Dan Wetzel piece on Troy Weaver’s long path from AAU coach to NBA general manager.
The Bucks will lose their 2022 second-round pick due to the Bogdan Bogdanovic shenanigans. I think the punishment supports the conspiracy theory that Bogi’s agent pulled out when it began to look like the NBA could void the contract due to tampering. Also, the Bucks have now been punished twice for tampering related to efforts to keep Giannis! Incredible.
Adam Silver vows the NBA will not jump the line for the COVID-19 vaccine. It’s a nice sentiment. We’ll see.
Big lovely Michael Lee piece in the Washington Post on Russell Westbrook.
The NBA has declared today to be Jersey Day. In related news, LEGO has declared December 26 to be LEGO Build Day. Capitalism!
Opening night. Folks, let’s basketball. Be excellent to each other.
