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The NBA has received “signs of interest from multiple investor groups for new teams in Las Vegas and Seattle that the league plans to sell for as much” as $10B, according to sources cited by BLOOMBERG NEWS. The sources said that early indications show Las Vegas is “drawing more interest than Seattle.” A source said that while “no formal bids have been submitted, there’s been substantial outreach from investors.”
Q. Do you have any regrets about your career and your decisions? Patrick Ewing: My only regret is leaving when I did. You know, I played 15 years in New York and you hear the team is better off without him or little rumbles from maybe some of your teammates… Ah, you know, he's you know, he getting too much touches in too much time. So, you know, I just got tired. I got worn down with it. I'm like, man, it's 15 years I'm still hearing the same bullsh*t. just got tired and I'm like, you know what, man? It's time to go. you know, Seattle came, they gave them a great offer, but that's the only regret that I have.
Earlier that summer, the Spurs used a first-round pick on a troubled but talented point guard from Seattle named Dejounte Murray. Having befriended Murray through Seattle’s AAU scene, Johnson was hired in part to help the new rookie acclimate to the NBA. What happened next surprised exactly nobody from Seattle who knew Johnson. He began to rise up the Spurs’ organizational chart, eventually earning a spot as a front-of-the-bench assistant on Popovich’s staff. “You can’t be around Mitch for long without falling in love with him,” Kalina said.
Marc Stein: The only NBA team that has ever fetched 7 billion or more is the Lakers when they were sold last year. If they confirm that there are groups that are solid and willing to bid 7 to 10 billion then yes we are going to get expansion. If the bids don't come in that high, then I think the owners will say no. Because the reason they would be willing to give up a slice of the TV money to let the TV division go from 130th to 132nd is because if again, let's just say two Seattle and Vegas come in at 8 billion each, that is 16 billion divided by 30 and the players get none of it.
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The NBA's board of governors has approved a vote for the league to explore bids and applicants for expansion teams exclusively in Las Vegas and Seattle. All 30 owners voted in favor of exploring Las Vegas and Seattle expansion, sources told ESPN. A bidding process is expected to generate offers in the $7-10 billion range for each team, according to sources. Sources told ESPN last week that the league is targeting the 2028-29 season for the two expansion franchises to start playing.
Silver will hold a news conference later Wednesday to discuss next steps. The league said investment bank PJT Partners has been brought on "as a strategic adviser to evaluate prospective markets, ownership groups, arena infrastructure, and the broader economic implications of expansion." The league will examine Seattle and Las Vegas bids over the next several months, and whether to execute the new franchise purchases in 2026 or in a few years. There will be a potential final vote later this year to finalize the transactions to 32 teams. In both voting rounds, 23 of 30 governors must vote in favor.
The NBA’s Board of Governors is set to meet in New York Wednesday to formally give the league permission to begin the process of selecting potential candidate cities for expansion – with Seattle and Las Vegas the only cities that are expected to be approved at the meeting for formal vetting. Formal vetting for buyers of teams is usually a months-long process involving detailed, forensic examinations of the financial capabilities of potential ownership groups to finance what is expected to be an NBA record-setting expansion fee of as much as $10 billion for each city’s new ownership, according to multiple league executives and industry experts contacted by The Athletic.
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson on Thursday previewed an upcoming meeting with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver ahead of a planned vote on league expansion that could bring men’s professional basketball back to Seattle. ESPN has reported that the Tuesday and Wednesday meetings of the NBA’s board of governors next week in New York would include a vote on initiating expansion to Seattle and Las Vegas.
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Draymond Green: Man, can you imagine, though, for players in the Western Conference? You get Vegas and Seattle. Meanwhile, the East picks up Minnesota and Memphis. Man, that’s a drastic change. Guys in the West, you are ecstatic. Like, yo, you get trips to Vegas and Seattle now, as opposed to going to Minnesota more than once, or going to Memphis more than once. And just do Memphis—do everybody a favor—and move that team to Nashville. There are no great hotels in Memphis. I love the people of Memphis. They are incredible. Shout out to the people of Memphis. I love them. But just from an NBA standpoint, man, there’s not a sauna or a hot tub in sight. Nowhere. Not at the gym, not at a spa, not at a hotel—nothing. Not in sight. So the NBA either needs to send that team to Nashville so they can have proper facilities, or, even better, the NBA should make it mandatory that teams have at least a hot tub and cold tub, but probably also a sauna, in their visiting locker room.”
To right a past wrong. Seattle has been the biggest city in the country without an NBA team for nearly 20 years, since the SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City. Bringing a team back to Seattle in 2028-29, 20 years after the Thunder began playing in OKC in 2008, would become one of the defining events of Adam Silver's tenure as commissioner. For years, the issue with the NBA's return to Seattle was the lack of a replacement for KeyArena, deemed inadequate by the league as part of the Sonics' move. That changed in 2021 when the renovated Climate Pledge Arena opened as home of the WNBA's Storm and the expansion NHL Kraken.
The Thunder, however, do not hang any banners for the SuperSonics in Oklahoma City, and in their media guide they don't highlight any Seattle stats -- listing, for example, Russell Westbrook as the team's all-time assists leader, rather than Payton. Sources said if a team was to return to Seattle, the Thunder would cede the Seattle history back to the SuperSonics -- just as the NBA's Charlotte Hornets reclaimed the Charlotte-era history of the New Orleans Pelicans when Charlotte regained the Hornets name in 2014.
Vinny Benedetto: David Adelman's succinct thoughts on NBA expansion: "Keep Portland in Portland and add Seattle. Vegas would be cool. Nashville is a nice city."