INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told ESPN on Wednesday that Las Vegas is “definitely on our list” of cities under consideration for expansion franchises.
Las Vegas has been mentioned as an NBA destination many times before and the timetable for when the league will add new franchises to its existing group of 30 clubs is unclear. The NBA has another year after this season on its $24 billion, nine-year media rights deal and Silver has long said that serious expansion talks won't happen until the new media deal is finalized.
“We want to figure out what our media relationships are going to look like but then we will turn to expansion,” Silver said again Wednesday in the interview with ESPN, one of the league's media partners.
Las Vegas already plays host to the NBA's primary summer league, has a successful WNBA franchise in the two-time defending champion Aces, has been the site of All-Star weekend and was where the semifinals and final in this season's inaugural in-season tournament took place. It has been an expansion target for years, and LeBron James has said many times that he wants to own the team that many believe will inevitably come to Las Vegas.
Seattle has also been often mentioned as an expansion candidate. Silver told NBA.com for a story published earlier this week that Mexico City is “on our radar” but the league bringing a team there is “probably not going to happen in the next wave of expansion.”
Nashville, Vancouver and Montreal are among the places that have also been mentioned in recent years as cities that would have interest in an expansion franchise.
Silver is scheduled to hold his annual All-Star weekend news conference with multiple news outlets on Saturday night.
