NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday that the NBA will further discuss potential expansion with team owners next month.
Speaking during a news conference in Inglewood, California, during NBA All-Star Weekend, Silver said the league will continue the expansion research process at the league’s March board of governors meeting.
“My sense is at the March board of governors meetings will be having further discussions around the expansion process,” Silver said. “We won’t be voting at the March meeting, but we will likely come out of those meetings ready prepared to take a next step in terms of talking to interested parties.”
Despite Las Vegas and Seattle being hotly rumored to be the lead cities to land expansion teams, Silver noted it does not have to be a two-team expansion. Relocation of existing teams to other markets is not on the table at this time, Silver said.
“Expansion doesn’t have to be any number of teams,” Silver said. “The logical next room would be to say, ‘Alright, we’ve had those discussions internally, we made decisions about cities to focus on and what the opportunity is and now we got to go out to the marketplace.’ And I think that is the most important step to find out who potentially is interested in owning a franchise in particular cities. What is the value of that franchise. There’s some work to do in terms of potential conference realignment and the next step there.”
Not teasing Vegas, Seattle
Silver has been teasing potential expansion for several years, previously stating that the league had to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement and broadcast rights deals before the league would shift their focus to expansion.
“In fairness to cities, Seattle and Las Vegas, in particular, I have been very clear I don’t want to tease cites or mislead anyone,” Silver said. “We wanted to get through collective bargaining, national television deals; we’ve done that. Now we’ve turned to it (expansion) as a league.”
Last year, Silver said the league was forming an expansion committee that would research the potential implications of adding two new teams. Two key areas of focus were the dilution of revenue teams make and the player talent pool that would occur with bringing two new franchises into the league.
A recent report by the Dallas Morning News said that NBA’s expansion vote will probably take place this summer, with Las Vegas and Seattle both the front-runners to land new teams.
The NBA has a long relationship with Las Vegas, with the city having hosted NBA Summer League at UNLV since 2004, the culmination of the NBA Cup in-season tournament for the past three years, and USA Basketball multiple times over the years.
“Gov. (Joe) Lombardo appreciates the conversations Las Vegas has had with the NBA and is excited about the possibility of expansion to the market,” said Drew Galang, Lombardo’s spokesman.
No recent talks
Area officials haven’t had contact with the league in recent times, but that falls in line with what the next steps would be in the process, as Silver laid out Saturday.
Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom said he’s not aware of any recent talks between the county and the NBA.
Steve Hill, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said he hasn’t had recent talks with the NBA either.
Hill isn’t surprised by that because the situation is different from when the Raiders relocated to Las Vegas in 2020 and the pending move of the Athletics in 2028, as the NBA progress isn’t tied to public funding requests.
“The NBA is in a different situation than, for example, the Raiders and the A’s at some level in that they’re not, as far as I know, nobody involved is asking for public money,” Hill said. “So, that part of that conversation, I wouldn’t be in it.”
Hill has had conversations with some members from three groups that have expressed interest in bringing an NBA team to Las Vegas, providing some information relating to Las Vegas Valley market.
“We’ve talked with a couple of them and provided some information for them, but that’s really it at this point,” Hill said.
Potential ownership groups
Those groups are one that includes Golden Knights owner Bill Foley; Fenway Sports Group, which includes NBA star LeBron James; and a group including NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson.
Foley owns the Knights and their minor league affiliates, AFC Bournemouth and Auckland FC and has ownership stakes in Lorient FC and Hibernian FC.
James has mentioned on multiple occasions that he had interest in being part of the ownership group for a Las Vegas NBA team, and he holds a minority stake in Fenway Sports. Fenway owns the Boston Red Sox, Liverpool FC and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Johnson holds minority stakes in the Los Angeles Dodgers, Washington Commanders, Los Angeles Sparks, Los Angeles FC and Washington Spirit. The basketball Hall of Famer also used to hold a minority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers.
Raiders and Aces owner Mark Davis was asked this week, following the introduction of newly hired head coach Klint Kubiak, if he had interest in being part of the ownership group that would bring an NBA team to Las Vegas.
Davis sidestepped the question, stating he wasn’t going to comment on the matter, but said, “I think Las Vegas is a great market for basketball. There’s no question about it.”
Where would an NBA team play?
If an NBA team were to be awarded to Las Vegas. the focus would move to where an expansion team would play its home games.
The only facility in Southern Nevada that could host NBA games is T-Mobile Arena. Foley holds a 15 percent ownership stake in T-Mobile Arena and told Vegas PBS last year that he would commit $300 million toward renovating the nearly 10-year-old arena if his group were successful in landing an NBA expansion franchise.
Real estate group LVXP announced plans to build an NBA-ready arena with a resort on land located on the north end of the Strip. The site has long been eyed for such a project, as former Rebel and NBA player Jackie Robinson led an unsuccessful yearslong effort to get a project going on the former Wet N’ Wild site.
A representative of LVXP did not respond to a request for comment on the status of the project.
Segerblom’s district includes the north Strip, where the LVXP project is being planned. Despite no movement on the project occurring since the company filed initial plans for the site plan in October 2024, Segerblom said the company is ready to go.
“To my knowledge they’re still in the running (to build),” Segerblom told the Review-Journal this week via text message. “They are already approved and ready to go from the county standpoint.”
Another NBA-ready project that has been touted, by renowned arena Oak View Group, was originally planned to be built on land at Las Vegas Boulevard and Blue Diamond Road. OVG pulled out of its plan to construct a $1 billion, NBA-ready arena to be coupled with a hotel-casino in 2024, stating that it still planned to move forward with the project elsewhere in the Las Vegas Valley.
Marc Badain, president of MLB’s Athletics, which will relocate to Las Vegas in 2028, was leading Oak View’s arena project efforts before he left the company to join the A’s.
No movement has occurred related to OVG’s Las Vegas plans since the 2024 announcement to pull out of the Las Vegas Boulevard plan, but a person with knowledge of the situation said it was still exploring options in Las Vegas.
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.