Expansion

[OakleyDokely]

There's enough talent globally now that you can add all of Las Vegas, Seattle, Mexico City, Vancouver over a certain period of time. It won't happen all at once, but over a decade or so, NBA expansion to 34 teams isn't unreasonable. It's going to be Seattle and Vegas first though.

Really long term though, they're probably trying to figure out the logistics of a Euro division consisting of cities like Rome, Milan, Paris, Madrid, London, Berlin because the NA market is nearing oversaturation.

[JB7]

Minny will/would fight tooth and nail to stay in the west — I remember them complaining the most about the extra travel miles they Incur travelling east

New Orleans and Memphis look like they’re parallel to Chicago on the map.

New Orleans is on the same interstate as Houston and shares a lot of cultural overlap.


Memphis is broke and ghetto; they got the least leverage and are further north the New Orleans.


Memphis: destined to play in the east central with charlotte and Chicago etc…

Minny is 1500 km from NYC and 2500 km from LA (Miami is also 2500 km away). It's within driving distance of most Central division teams (it's a 4 hour drive to Milwaukee, 6 hours to Chicago). I would imagine they would do much less travelling if they played in the East. Time zones would also be easier to manage (+1 hour for east coast games instead of -2 hours for west coast games).

Ya that’s what I thought.

Makes sense Chicago - Milwaukee - Minneapolis they gotta be on the same trucking route.

I mean culturally their similar cities polish - Ukrainian, cheese eaters that say “don’t cha knoooow”

That’s why it surprised me to hear ninny behind the scenes was the biggest proponent for more in conference games.


Travel was the issue. The missing variable: winter weather patterns.

West coast has milder weather which means less delays and more direct travel routes.

https://dunkingwithwolves.com/posts/timberwolves-have-most-difficult-schedule-nba-this-category

Considering how the most recent history has seen the Western Conference as the dominant conference, I would think all of Minny, Memphis and New Orleans would probably be happy to join the East, to have a better chance at success.

Where Minny is positioned, they are already travelling a lot. But if they were in the central division, I would think that would help cut down their travel time.

[ciueli]

The Canadian city that should be considered is not Vancouver, it's Montreal. Montreal is the 9th highest population city in North America, on the same list Vancouver is 59th, it's smaller than Winnipeg. Even looking at Metro area Montreal is ahead by 1.5M people, I get that the French language is a barrier, but there's enough international players now that I don't think it would be a big deal, a lot of the biggest stars are from Europe, we've literally just seen back to back French players go first overall in the draft, the top 4 players by Box +/- in the NBA last season were all non-US born (Jokic, Luka, Giannis, Shai).

And let's be real, Vancouver had its chance. I'm sure if they were given another chance it would work out better as basketball is more popular in Canada now, but they should be behind Montreal in the queue given their failure the first time.

[JB7]

There's enough talent globally now that you can add all of Las Vegas, Seattle, Mexico City, Vancouver over a certain period of time. It won't happen all at once, but over a decade or so, NBA expansion to 34 teams isn't unreasonable. It's going to be Seattle and Vegas first though.

Really long term though, they're probably trying to figure out the logistics of a Euro division consisting of cities like Rome, Milan, Paris, Madrid, London, Berlin because the NA market is nearing oversaturation.

With the dominance of the Euro players, I can't imagine the NBA would want to have a Euro division. All of the European stars would demand to be traded to those teams, leaving the axis of power in Europe rather than LA, Miami & NY.

[agkagk]

Minny is 1500 km from NYC and 2500 km from LA (Miami is also 2500 km away). It's within driving distance of most Central division teams (it's a 4 hour drive to Milwaukee, 6 hours to Chicago). I would imagine they would do much less travelling if they played in the East. Time zones would also be easier to manage (+1 hour for east coast games instead of -2 hours for west coast games).

Ya that’s what I thought.

Makes sense Chicago - Milwaukee - Minneapolis they gotta be on the same trucking route.

I mean culturally their similar cities polish - Ukrainian, cheese eaters that say “don’t cha knoooow”

That’s why it surprised me to hear ninny behind the scenes was the biggest proponent for more in conference games.


Travel was the issue. The missing variable: winter weather patterns.

West coast has milder weather which means less delays and more direct travel routes.

https://dunkingwithwolves.com/posts/timberwolves-have-most-difficult-schedule-nba-this-category

Considering how the most recent history has seen the Western Conference as the dominant conference, I would think all of Minny, Memphis and New Orleans would probably be happy to join the East, to have a better chance at success.

Where Minny is positioned, they are already travelling a lot. But if they were in the central division, I would think that would help cut down their travel time.

Ya so did I, turns out it’s not true, google it!

They have their own wind stream issue they prefer going west

[agkagk]

Minny will/would fight tooth and nail to stay in the west — I remember them complaining the most about the extra travel miles they Incur travelling east

New Orleans and Memphis look like they’re parallel to Chicago on the map.

New Orleans is on the same interstate as Houston and shares a lot of cultural overlap.


Memphis is broke and ghetto; they got the least leverage and are further north the New Orleans.


Memphis: destined to play in the east central with charlotte and Chicago etc…

Minny is 1500 km from NYC and 2500 km from LA (Miami is also 2500 km away). It's within driving distance of most Central division teams (it's a 4 hour drive to Milwaukee, 6 hours to Chicago). I would imagine they would do much less travelling if they played in the East. Time zones would also be easier to manage (+1 hour for east coast games instead of -2 hours for west coast games).

Ya that’s what I thought.

Makes sense Chicago - Milwaukee - Minneapolis they gotta be on the same trucking route.

I mean culturally their similar cities polish - Ukrainian, cheese eaters that say “don’t cha knoooow”

That’s why it surprised me to hear ninny behind the scenes was the biggest proponent for more in conference games.


Travel was the issue. The missing variable: winter weather patterns.

[billy_hoyle]

The Canadian city that should be considered is not Vancouver, it's Montreal. Montreal is the 9th highest population city in North America, on the same list Vancouver is 59th, it's smaller than Winnipeg. Even looking at Metro area Montreal is ahead by 1.5M people, I get that the French language is a barrier, but there's enough international players now that I don't think it would be a big deal, a lot of the biggest stars are from Europe, we've literally just seen back to back French players go first overall in the draft, the top 4 players by Box +/- in the NBA last season were all non-US born (Jokic, Luka, Giannis, Shai).

And let's be real, Vancouver had its chance. I'm sure if they were given another chance it would work out better as basketball is more popular in Canada now, but they should be behind Montreal in the queue given their failure the first time.

I don't disagree, but you really should be consistent and use the metro area population. Technically, Vancouver is smaller than Winnipeg, but not in any practical terms. The metro Vancouver area is 3x size of Winnipeg.

Montreal & Vancouver should both get teams. Vegas and Seattle are probably first up tho.

[ontnut]

It would be really disappointing if the 2 teams were Vegas and Seattle while Vancouver gets shafted.

Shafted? They blew their shot. If they’d only supported the team the first go round it would still be there.

Mexico City and Vegas would be cool.

I can't see Mexico getting a team.