Adam Silver said the league will discuss expansion at a Board of Governors meeting in March and could make a decision as soon as this year. Exciting times for Seattle and Las Vegas (the two frontrunner cities to land NBA teams)!
That inspired me to think about a potential expansion draft that could have serious ripple effects across the league.
The last round of expansion came in 2004 when the Hornets were raised from the ashes in Charlotte. But that was a one-team expansion draft in which the most impactful development was the Bobcats agreeing to take Jahidi White off the Suns’ hands in exchange for a first-round pick (the Suns later acquired Steve Nash). Our last two-team expansion was in 1995, when the league expanded to Canada and added the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies. Twenty-seven players got selected in that draft.
It took years for those teams to get any good (and Vancouver eventually relocated to Memphis). But with the amount of talent in the league today, I bet that two expansion franchises could actually field pretty competitive teams from Day 1.
To prove it, I performed my own expansion draft that I’m going to share with you here.
But before we get to that, we have to create our teams.
The Teams
Seattle SuperSonics – Duh.
Las Vegas Glow – I’ve seen people throw around other team-name ideas inspired by Vegas casinos. I’d bet that the league would want to stay away from anything even slightly adjacent to gambling, given the existence of Sugar and Spook. Instead, “Glow” pays homage to the city’s entertainment culture and desert sun. Las Vegas will also join the Heat, Magic, Thunder and Jazz as rare non-plural team names.
The Rules
Now, the rules, which I lifted from the previous expansion draft.
- Existing teams are allowed to protect up to eight players.
- Players on expiring contracts are not eligible to be protected, unless they are restricted free agents.
- Teams must expose at least one player.
- Teams may not lose more than one player in the expansion draft.
- Expansion teams will choose 14 players, leaving one roster spot open for their first-round pick.
- Expansion teams may select no more than one player from each team.
Given these rules, I went through all 30 teams and made my protections. I won’t bore you with all my selections, but some takeaways:
- Teams largely protected players on team-friendly contracts.
- Two-way wings were rarely left unprotected. The few that did went high in the draft.
- Smaller guards were generally left unprotected, as were players with injury histories.
- Every team except the Kings used all eight of their protections.
- Some teams strategically left high-salary players open in hopes that an expansion team would select them and receive a one-time “amnesty.”
- Toughest decisions: San Antonio between Luke Kornet and Julian Champagnie. Oklahoma City between Alex Caruso and Thomas Sorber, Minnesota between Terrence Shannon Jr. and Jaylen Clark, Brooklyn between Day’Ron Sharpe and Noah Clowney and Indiana between T.J. McConnell and Obi Toppin.
- Here’s the full, 105-player pool we were left with.
Seattle got the first pick, Las Vegas had the second in a back-and-forth draft (not snake style). Here’s each team’s final roster and depth chart:
Seattle SuperSonics
PG: Nikola Topic / Ty Jerome / AJ Johnson
SG: Malik Monk / Brice Sensabaugh / Cam Christie
SF: Julian Champagnie / Corey Kispert
PF: Dorian Finney-Smith / Nikola Jovic / Gui Santos
C: Jakob Poeltl / DaRon Holmes II / Luka Garza
Las Vegas Glow
PG: Dejounte Murray / Marcus Sasser
SG: Josh Green / Vit Krejci / Tyrese Proctor
SF: Justin Champagnie / Terrence Shannon Jr. / Pecome Dadiet
PF: Royce O’Neale / Jarace Walker / Noah Penda
C: Day’Ron Sharpe / Patrick Williams / Johni Broome
Notes from the draft:
- There was a draft-day trade! After trying and failing to convince the SuperSonics to take Zach LaVine’s contract off their hands, the Kings convinced the SuperSonics to take on the remaining two years, $41 million of Malik Monk’s contract by trading them four second-round picks.
- Another one! The Raptors agreed to swap first-round picks in 2030 in exchange for Seattle drafting Jakob Poeltl as new SuperSonics GM Bob Myers aims to collect draft assets in his first year.
- The Thunder left Caruso and Aaron Wiggins unprotected, but because teams can only lose one player to the expansion draft, both returned to OKC after Seattle made Nikola Topic the No. 1 pick.
- The Glow collected two second-round picks from the Bulls in exchange for drafting Patrick Williams.
Takeaways
Neither team will be competing for the playoffs in their first season, but both have a young player worth building with (Topic, Sharpe), veterans who can help make them respectable in the short term (Murray, Poeltl) and impact role players who could be flipped for draft assets at the trade deadline (Finney-Smith and Jerome, O’Neale and Green).
Both teams stocked up on young players on rookie contracts and versatile wings, while neither ended up saddled with a huge contract that threatened its financial flexibility.
Makes you think about how most teams would approach team building if they could start from scratch.
