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Adam Silver Addresses NBA Expansion Rumors

The league is not currently having discussions about expanding the league, although likely will at some point.

Madison Williams

Rumors recently sparked that the NBA could add two new franchises after the 2024 season. However, NBA commissioner Adam Silver denied that discussions are currently happening for an expansion, for now.

The commissioner spoke with reporters ahead of Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Celtics and the Warriors on Thursday, and said there are currently no discussions of expanding the league. This doesn’t mean it won’t happen necessarily, just that there haven’t been any moves to make the expansion a reality yet.

“We are not discussing that at this time,” Silver said. “As I’ve said before, at some point, this league will invariably expand, just not at this moment.”

Whenever the expansion happens, the NBA will likely become a 32-team league.

Silver said one of the issues with expanding is that there will be a drop off of talent because there won’t be enough “super talents” for the new franchises. 

The two proposed expansion cities are reportedly Seattle and Las Vegas. Seattle already had an NBA team, the Supersonics, from 1967–2008. However, the team then relocated to Oklahoma City and was renamed the Thunder. Las Vegas has never been home to an NBA team.

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Madison Williams
MADISON WILLIAMS

Madison Williams is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated, where she specializes in tennis but covers a wide range of sports from a national perspective. Before joining SI in 2022, Williams worked at The Sporting News. Having graduated from Augustana College, she completed a master’s in sports media at Northwestern University. She is a dog mom and an avid reader.

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