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Dink Pate has agreed to sign with the New York Knicks. Pate went undrafted this week after spending the 2024-25 season in the G League with the Mexico City Capitanes.
Adam Silver on expansion: Maybe there's more we can do in Canada and Mexico City
Adam Silver: There's cities worth thinking about. Dan Patrick: How many cities would you say are on that wish list? Silver: Well, let me begin by saying it. It's not obvious to me we should expand. I think it's likely over time we will. And and the reason I say it's not obvious is because as a global business, you know, where something like two billion people will connect with us on social media, over a billion people over the course of the year will watch some portion of the game: Adding another US city, arguably, it's unclear how much growth we'll get as a result of that. And when you're adding expansion franchises, you're diluting your competition. Let's say we expand by two teams, two more teams that you know are going to be competing for those same players and you're diluting your economics to the extent we have locked in television money now for the next decade you have two more partners. Having said that, I do believe certain markets potentially can be additive to the NBA and that's what we’re gonna look at. I think part of it is geographic it's a big country you know making sure we're represented you know all around the country and then over time maybe there's more we can do in Canada and Mexico City as a city we've talked about before.
Pistons, Mavericks to play in Mexico City
Mexico will get to see NBA stars play in a regular-season game in the 2025-26 season. The league announced on Tuesday that the Dallas Mavericks and the Detroit Pistons will be the teams sharing the court in a game in Mexico City in November. “The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Zignia Live today announced that The NBA Mexico City Game 2025 will feature the Dallas Mavericks and the Detroit Pistons playing a regular-season game hosted by Zignia Live at the Arena CDMX in Mexico City on Saturday, Nov. 1.,” the leagues' statement read (via the NBA's official website).
NBA Communications: The NBA and Zignia Live today announced that The NBA Mexico City Game 2025 will feature the @dallasmavs and the @DetroitPistons playing a regular-season game hosted by Zignia Live at the Arena CDMX in Mexico City on Saturday, Nov. 1. Complete release: https://pr.nba.com/mavericks-pistons-mexico-city-2025/
The Mexico City Capitanes have just finished their third home season in the G League, where they led all teams in attendance, merchandise, single-game ticket sales and general overall ambience. The reward is a place on the NBA’s expansion list alongside Seattle and Las Vegas, and whether Mexico City is next in line or third in line (and the latter is more likely), there is now hard and anecdotal evidence that an NBA franchise could prosper in that bilingual culture. “That’s what Capitanes are fighting for,” said Nuño Pérez-Pla de Alvear, the team’s president. “All the work that we have been doing these last few years has been to prove to the NBA that having an NBA team makes sense here in Mexico City.”
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G League executives were learning about the city on the fly. Before the team played its official home opener at Arena CDMX in 2022-23, the league was informed there would be drums pounding throughout the game — a tried and true tradition borrowed from soccer — and the league had to alter a rule prohibiting that. Mariachi bands would be roaming the stands, as well, with firm instructions not to play during the action. But they were tempted. On the operations side, there were questions about whether travel in and out of the county would be seamless for players and referees, and the answer, according to Abdur-Rahim, was yes. A trip from Dallas to Mexico City was 2 hours, 45 minutes; from New York was 5 hours, 30 minutes; from L.A. three hours, 40 minutes. It was no different from the NBA’s winding, coast-to-coast travel, other than the teams flew commercial.
This past January, the Capitanes drew a G League-record crowd of 19,328 for a game against the South Bay Lakers and finished with an unofficial season attendance total of 155,610, an average of 6,477 per game. The ticket prices were moderate, with the premier courtside seats going for $200 and dropping incrementally to between $90 to $150 in the first few rows to between $35 to $40 in the lower bowl, to $3 or $4 in the upper bowl. The team also led the G League in single-game ticket sales, largely because Sherman said the Mexican culture is to purchase “walk-up” tickets rather than season tickets or group sales. The front office is diligently working to change that.
But the team’s crowds on the road are perhaps the biggest eye-opener of all. At first, groups of as many as 2,000 Hispanic fans would organically attend Capitanes games. But now there are Hispanic Heritage Nights or Mexican Nights in a bevy of G League cities such as Los Angeles and Greensboro that include mariachi bands and pop-up taco stands — doubling the Capitanes rooting section to about 4,000 fans. “You have tons of Mexicans living in the U.S. and over 80 million Latins living in the U.S. that … are going to support a Latin team,” Pérez-Pla de Alvear said.
Which is why NBA expansion is realistic sooner or later. Pérez-Pla de Alvear said for Mexico City to receive a team, it will need to construct a training facility and locate safer, extravagant housing for the NBA players who earn eight figures. The current Capitanes roster — which has often featured Latino players such as Juan Toscano-Anderson — lives in a simple apartment complex on Avenida Presidente Masaryk in the affluent Polanco section of town. They earn what Pérez-Pla de Alvear calls a “humble” $46,000 a year. But the NBA life is the polar opposite.
“If I’m honest, I think for that [next] expansion, I think Mexico City is not going to be in it,” Pérez-Pla de Alvear said. “Right now, I think that’s not going to happen in a two-year period. Because I think easily that Seattle has everything, they have had the Supersonics. And Las Vegas has completely everything.” But Pérez-Pla de Alvear also said Mexico City has one little (or big) thing that Seattle and Las Vegas does not. “Instead of opening [the NBA] to a city,” he said, “you’re going to open a whole country.”
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The sense from Silver’s comments was that he’d like to have the league’s potential national streaming RSN figured out before granting expansion teams — whether it’s to Seattle, Las Vegas or Mexico City. At this week’s BOG meetings, Silver said President of Global Content & Media Distribution Bill Koenig delivered a presentation on the streaming RSN, and sources said the league does not intend to rush the streaming platform. Instead, it will continue negotiating for the best deal, whether that’s with Amazon, YouTube, Apple, ESPN+ or some other streaming service, believing the value of local broadcasts remain prohibitive.
Which city, anywhere in the world, should the NBA pick for expansion? Las Vegas: 8 Seattle: 4 Paris: 4 Mexico City, London, Nashville, Dubai, Saint-Tropez: 1 Powell: “I live there, so if Vegas got a team, I’d be the first one to apply.” Garland: “Nashville, because I live there. How about we move Memphis to Nashville, put a team in Vegas, a team in Paris, a team in Dubai and a team in Saint-Tropez?”
Pérez said the viability of American cities Seattle and Las Vegas as NBA markets is well known but argued the Capitanes have “demonstrated the potential that Mexico City has.” Silver, the NBA commissioner, said the league would also have to engage the National Basketball Players Association on expansion to Mexico City, to ensure players would accept moving there for half the year. “The NBA is testing Mexico right now, logistics testing, security testing and business testing to see what is the real potential of Mexico,” Pérez said.
Also, the neighborhood in which the arena is located is dilapidated, likely uncomfortable for wealthy basketball players who would be unlikely to solve the logistics problem of travel time by moving closer to the arena — an issue that could extend to the paying customers. “The people who can (afford to) pay the cost of NBA tickets, they live far from the arena,” said Othon Diaz, chief executive officer for all of Diablos Rojos’ sports teams. “The area (around the arena) is not the best place — like security, the streets are not so nice. “You can go to a concert every three or four months, but four to six games a month? That’s a problem.”
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