Summer Forecast: Where will NBA expand?

[ESPN News]

Our NBA experts predict where the league is most likely to expand by 2018.

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[RenegadeLonghorn]

A big NO to any team outside of U.S. and Canada. Puerto Rico is a maybe. I think we'll see a Seattle Sonics team within five years.

Here's a nice map.

NBA needs more teams out West. Why not a team in Kansas or Missouri?

[the_future]

I agree. I could definitely forsee a team in St. Louis, MO...

[Hoopsman]

A big NO to any team outside of U.S. and Canada. Puerto Rico is a maybe. I think we'll see a Seattle Sonics team within five years.

Here's a nice map.

NBA needs more teams out West. Why not a team in Kansas or Missouri?

I heard New York may finally have a team

[giantrobot9000]

1)Seattle needs the Sonics back

2)Las Vegas definitely works

3-tie)St. Louis and Kansas City could work

Although the international cities sound nice, it would just be crazy shuttling all of those teams back and forth over the Atlantic.

If they want to make a seperate NBA Europe league, I'm all for that,though. They could incorporate the existing European clubs possibly, too, giving a nice talent pool to pick from already in place. No more than 12-16 teams.

[helstad]

I think expanding the NBA to Europe wont happen.

But all that "the team who wins the NBA are the world champions" sounds a bit nonsense at the same time. They probably are the best team in the world but why not let other teams have a say in it.

Taking the example of soccer. The best teams in the world are in Europe and South America (few but some are decent enough to compete with the European giants). They created the Intercontinental Cup between the champion of Europe and the champion of South America and the declared the winner as the world champion.

This became a farse with clubs from Asia, Mexico and Africa complaining about it, and they had to create the world championship. The results are pretty much the same: 4 world championships so far and the european and south american teams won all of them. The other continent teams couldn´t even reach the final once, but at least now it´s a real and official world competition. The winners are the true world champions.


Why not do the same with basketball? The winner of NBA, the Euroleague and the winners from other continents could to a 6 team tournament like this in a week (like in soccer). It doesn´t mess with each team schedules, since it´s only 2 games per year and the winner could be declared the official world champion.

I think this could work.

[RenegadeLonghorn]

I heard New York may finally have a team

I heard the same! :)

[biggle46]

Lets get my city a team back....come on seattle