NBA Expansion Crazy Ideas

Before I start, let me be clear. The things I am going to talk about, most likely won’t happen for a long time in the NBA. So, before you call me crazy, just remember these are all hypothetical situations.

With all the talk about Sacramento Kings moving to Seattle, the New Orleans Hornets becoming the New Orleans Pelicans and the Charlotte Bobcats going back to the Charlotte Hornets, it got me thinking what if the league added more teams? I know there probably will be one or two more teams added in the next five years. But, I’m not just talking about one or teams, I’m talking about adding 6 more teams. Currently, there are 30 teams in the NBA divided into two conferences and 6 divisions. Each division has 5 teams thus each conference has 15 teams. For the moment, the league set up is close to perfect with the exception of David Stern and the referees. However, as basketball gets bigger and gets globalized, there are going to be more athletes within and from other countries. The number of players in a team, at max is 15. In general, there can be 450 players in the NBA, given that every team has 15 players. But, if the league expanded to 36 teams, there would be 90 more players. Although that doesn’t sound like a lot, it would give more players the chance to play. I mean, there are tons of players still looking for a job, who could potentially play for these teams, such as Gilbert Arenas, Stephon Marbury, Larry Hughes, Mehmet Okur, Andres Nocioni, Al Thorton, Troy Murphy among a lot of others could aren’t in current teams that could still play. The biggest one being Allen Iverson.

My Plan:

First, like I stated, I would add one more team to each division. But, before we can do that, we have to re align the league. I mean, Memphis and New Orleans are geographically on the East side of the USA but in the NBA world, they are in the Western Conference. So, my plans for re alignment are:

• First, the names of the divisions would be reconsidered. In the West, there would be Northwest, Pacific but Southwest would be changed to Midwest. While in the West, there would be Atlantic, Southeast and Central like currently.
• Second, some teams would have to change divisions and even conferences.
  • Dallas, San Antonio, Houston would go from Southwest to Midwest
  • Denver would go from Northwest to Pacific
  • Golden State would go from Pacific to Northwest
  • Memphis would go from the Western Conference (Southwest Division) to the Eastern Conference (Southeast Division)
  • Minnesota would go from Northwest to Midwest
  • New Orleans would go from the Western Conference (Southwest Division) to the Eastern Conference (Southeast Division)
  • Oklahoma City would go from Northwest to Midwest
  • Sacramento would go from Pacific to Northwest
  • Toronto would go from Atlantic to Central
  • Washington would go from Southeast to Atlantic
• All the other teams would stay in the same division

Second, I would add teams to the divisions. But, since we aligned it already, the teams would have to be added to each division accordingly. The Southeast and Central Divisions already have 6 teams, after the re-alignment, thus we would not add any more teams there. There would have to be two teams added to the Northwest and Pacific divisions while one added to each Midwest and Atlantic divisions. So, the teams/cities I would add to the NBA are:

Seattle and Vancouver to the Northwest Division. Las Vegas and San Jose to the Pacific Division. Montreal to the Atlantic Division. Omaha to the Midwest Division.

			Capacity Index for NBA		Available Personal Income (billions of dollars)
Rank	Metro Area	All Pro Teams		Rating for NBA
2	Montreal	2	100	Sufficient	$82.96
4	Las Vegas	0	100	Sufficient	$69.32
9	San Jose	2	100	Sufficient	$55.33
16	Seattle	2	100	Sufficient	$38.58
20	Omaha	0	100	Sufficient	$37.00
24	Vancouver	2	98	Borderline	$33.29

Data from: 

http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/on-numbers/scott-thomas/2011/08/22-markets-have-nba-potential.html?appSession=144118935680643&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=&cpipage=3&CPISortType=&CPIorderBy=

• Seattle: In the year 2008, Clay Bennett and David Stern blatantly stole the Supersonics and relocated to Oklahoma City. Seattle fans are still fuming about this. And, to add salt to the wound, the OKC Thunder eventually reached the NBA Finals just 4 years after they relocated. The fans in Seattle certainly want a team. They almost got one this year with the turmoil in Sacramento, but that ultimately fell apart. Out of all the NBA cities, Seattle is and should be top priority if the NBA wants to restore its image. Plus, Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer would be quite the owners. Potential Names: Seattle Supersonics. Can’t by anything else.
• Las Vegas/Anaheim: Las Vegas has always been linked with multiple relocation and expansion rumors. Of course, how could it not be? It’s the biggest city without a pro sports team. Plus, the NBA All Star Game has been played there multiple times, so we know it’s capable of having a team. After Seattle, Las Vegas should be the second priority for the NBA. However, the biggest downfall to this idea is that Las Vegas is the gambling capital of the USA. The players would be addicted to this lifestyle plus, the NBA fixing could be a major problem. A quick alternate for the Las Vegas idea is Anaheim. Although South Cali probably cannot hold any more NBA teams, and the Lakers wouldn’t reject this idea, Anaheim is a good destination with tons of basketball fans, and the rumor has always been there. But, in a perfect world, I’d pick Las Vegas over Anaheim. Potential Names: Las Vegas Bandits, Anaheim Royals,
• Montreal: The NBA will probably be globalized in fifty years, so why not start with America’s neighbor to the North? Montreal has big sports fans (in Alouettes fans, Canadien fans). Also, Montreal is the second biggest city in Canada. However, the biggest thing for a team here is the rivalry it would create between itself and Toronto Raptors. Canadians are nice people, but when it comes to sports, they can be the biggest of enemies. It would create a nice Canadian rivalry and NBA would become more popular in Canada. I don’t know why, maybe it’s due to the NHL, but the NBA isn’t as popular in Canada. Adding another team would help, especially with two teams in the East. Potential Names: Montreal Quebecois
• Vancouver: Don’t worry Western Canadians, I didn’t forget you. Once upon a time, Vancouver had a NBA team called the Vancouver Grizzlies. However, not enough fan support was enough to get it relocated to Memphis. The End. But, seriously, Vancouver fans are passionate about sports (See Vancouver Riots after NHL Playoffs). A team in Vancouver would be great since it would get West Canada involved thus increasing value and income. Not to mention but a Seattle-Vancouver rivalry would be great. Potential Names: Vancouver Mounties, Vancouver Silverbacks,
• San Jose/Riverside-San Bernardino/San Diego: What? Another team in California? In a study, it was shown all three of these locations were ready for an NBA team due to it’s market potential. While Riverside-San Bernardino is the most suitable economically, I fear that it would be to close to the LA Lakers and the LA Clippers. San Diego, on the other hand, wouldn’t be a terrible choice, I feel like San Jose would be the most suitable. It’s far away from the Clippers and Lakers. While it’s closer to the Warriors home, it would create a rivalry there also. Plus, San Jose already has a stadium in the HP Pavilion Arena. Fan support would be no worry, as the Sharks have shown that the San Jose-ans would definitely come watch. Potential Names: San Jose Shooters
• Kansas City/Omaha/Pittsburgh: Out of all these, my pick would be Omaha. The biggest flaw wth that is that it would be a single market team. However, if that’s the worst, I would call that not too shabby. The biggest problem to the others is: Kansas City has huge interest in NCAA basketball, which could create a problem. With Pittsburgh, I have heard from many people that not enough people care about basketball there. While some people would want a NBA team, I do not think it would last very long. While Kansas City is the best, it already has the Royals and the Chiefs. If the NBA went to Omaha (where they have a relatively new stadium), it would boost NBA interest in the Midwest. Plus, Omaha is only a hour or two away from Kansas City, thus making it possible to go from one to another city. A while ago, they did try to split the games between the city which is a pretty reasonable idea, I do no think it’s feasible for the athletes. But, if there was enough interest between the cities to share the team benefit everyone, especially with the Basketball Hall of Fame being an hour away Kansas City. Potential Names: Pittsburgh Hornets, Kansas City Soul

NBA Teams with Potential Expansion Teams

West			East
Northwest	Pacific	Midwest	Atlantic	Southeast	Central
Portland	LA Clippers	Minnesota	Boston	Miami	Toronto
GS	LA Lakers	OKC	NY Knicks	Orlando	Cleveland
Sacramento	Denver	Dallas	Brooklyn	Atlanta	Chicago
Utah	Phoenix	SA	Philadelphia	Memphis	Milwaukee
Seattle	Las Vegas	Houston	Washington	New Orleans	Detroit
Vancouver	San Jose	Omaha	Montreal	Charlotte	Indiana

Season and Playoffs:

Another thing that would need to be changed is the number of games and playoffs.  Let’s be honest, as fans, we look forward to the playoffs more than the regular season. Of course, the athletes would need the regular season and the league would need it to see who would make the playoffs. But, my solution would be making the season shorter. The amount of games in the regular season would be reduced from 82 to between 50 to 70. The best number would be 66 or 70. I got these two numbers from:

Let’s take one team, say the Celtics. In their division, there are 5 other teams and they would play three times a year. So far, that’s 15 games. In their conference, not counting the teams in their divisions, there are 12 teams and they would play 2 games in a year. Thus, that 24 games plus the 15 division games, which makes 39 games. Now, as for the teams in the other conference, half of them would play each other twice while have would plays once thus the total conference games would add up to 27. That makes a grand total of 66. If that doesn’t satisfy people, we could add 4 more games against rivals around the league. So, the Celtics in addition to playing the 66 games would play 4 additional games against the Lakers, Heat, Bulls and Pistons. Of course, not all teams has 4 rivals but it shouldn’t be that hard to find.

Since, we have pretty much changed everything about the NBA, let’s take it one step further. Let’s change the playoffs. First, the seeding would have to be changed. Since, there are now six teams in each division, the top two teams from each division would make the playoffs. In addition, I would add in a Wild Card race, similar to the NFL and MLB. The top two teams from the Wild Card would also make the playoffs. There would still be 8 teams on each conference to reach the playoffs. The actual format of the playoffs, for most parts, are pretty well done. Not much needs to be changed, except the Finals should switch back from the 2-3-2 style to the 2-2-1-1-1. If you have no idea what that means, stop, google it and then come back.

So, basically, if I was appointed NBA Commissioner, those are the things I would change. I realize, that most of it isn’t very practical in the moment, but I feel like the NBA would be more successful and logical. Some of the main problems for my changes are:

• Not enough talents to have 36 teams
  • People aren’t happy with “Big Threes”, maybe this would help spread apart players;  I know you can’t force players to take less money, but you could always change salary cap
  • Change number of players on the roster from 15 to 12 or 13.
• The small market teams would fizzle out very swiftly due to attendance problems
  • If you look at the cities I mentioned, the only one that could have this problem is Omaha, but there is not many professional NBA teams in the mid-USA section, besides OKC. I think it would be pretty well off.

Ultimately, I said this would be a crazy idea. It might not work for another 10, 20 or even 50 years. But, as the population of the world increases and more and more people start playing basketball, it’s a change that will be required. What do you think? What would you change about the NBA? Tell us below!

NBA Teams Currently
Photo Courtesy of http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dTgZNKNvpYo/UQm8J-2eBAI/AAAAAAAAAQM/8tNJOc6rKdw/s1600/Basketball+map+2.png