NBA expansion not on ‘front burner’ for league right now

Those hoping for Las Vegas to add an NBA team to its list of pro sports franchises may have to wait longer than expected.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver appeared on the Dan Patrick Show on Friday and addressed the ongoing discussion of possible expansions into Seattle and Las Vegas.

“There’s no doubt Seattle would be a great market. Las Vegas would be a great market. There’s state-of-the-art arenas in both those communities,” Silver said. “And so we’ll look at it … it’s not on the front burner for our league right now.”

Silver said there are two main issues to look at when dealing with expansion, economics and the competition on the floor.

On the economics, Silver said, “If you expand, the way I think of the league, the 30 teams, there are 30 shareholders, and you are really selling equity. Let’s say, if you were to expand by an even number, the extent you are growing, things get divided by 1/32 instead of 1/30.”

On competition, Silver said, in a league such as the NBA that easily dominates internationally in basketball, he worries an expansion will dilute the talent pool.

“Even with all the very best players in the world coming to this league, a game played by tens of millions of kids around the world, you still don’t have the kind of competitive parity that we would like. And if you expand, you’re diluting talent even more.”

But Silver didn’t shut down the idea of expansion completely.

“Nothing will happen in the short or medium term, but we’ll turn back to it at some point.”

Contact Rochelle Richards at rrichards@reviewjournal.com. Follow @RoRichards24 on Twitter.