The NBA Doesn't Need 32 Teams

All right, last thing I wanna get to, uh, ESPN reported this week that the NBA is set to take another step forward on expansion.

The league has the Board of Governors meeting on March 25th.

That is when the owners are expected to, I don't know if it's a vote is the right way to frame it, but they're expected to look to advance.

They vote.

Are they voting on those two?

They need 23 out of 30 votes.

Yeah, um, to, but it seems like a foregone conclusion, right?

Yes, expansion is coming to the NBA.

Seattle is coming back to the NBA.

Las Vegas is coming to the NBA.

All the things that we thought was going to happen, we are now getting a little bit closer.

I was talking to somebody with ties to the league office last night who said the 28, 29 scenario is real, that you could see a team in both those cities start their seasons in 2028, 2029.

That also means There could be a big party in Minnesota if they wind up playing in the Eastern Conference as a result of all this, but that's a conversation for another day.

Um, this is clearly trending towards happening.

But as I sat there, Rachel, watching the Brooklyn Nets get pounded by the Oklahoma City Thunder, I started to think to myself, why?

Why, why are we thinking about adding two more teams to this mix when you have a team like Brooklyn and other teams, Washington, Utah, teams that are really, really bad.

Is there enough talent to go around to have 32 teams in the NBA?

Like the argument against expansion is that relocation could, you know, could, could.

Solve the same number of problems, right?

You could move a couple of teams, and I, I apologize in advance to the good fans of Memphis that I might be offending, but the Memphis Grizzlies could go somewhere.

Same thing to the good fans in, in New Orleans, but the New Orleans Pelicans could go one of those places.

All of a sudden you're taking two teams that are already in the Western Conference.

You move them to better markets where they are more viable.

Everything's solved.

You don't have to cut up the deals, all of that stuff, better arena deals.

There'll be two new arenas in both those places.

It'll all work out, um.

It doesn't seem like the NBA is considering that, you know, every time I talk to people about it, they just say, look, it's probably gonna be close to $10 billion for an expansion fee.

That's a lot of money going to the owner's pockets.

It's a lot of cash flowing through the NBA.

Uh, so it sounds like they're going in that direction, but I can't help but sit there and wonder sometimes, like, is this going to set the league back?

Like, you're gonna have two teams that are going to be awful for several years in the two expansion teams.

Add that on to the teams.

I mean, I guess, look, maybe Washington's better next year when they play their veteran guys, get the number one overall pick.

Same thing with Utah, same thing with, uh, you know, the other teams that are out there in Memphis when they get their guys back.

But like, is there enough talent to go around?

I guess that's the question.

Like, you know, this, this is not something the NBA hasn't considered.

Like Adam Silver's talked about this.

Like, it, it, maybe it's not the greatest idea in the world.

I'm just saying like, maybe it's because You know, this story comes out the same week I'm watching the freaking Brooklyn Nets who are just so damn bad and so uninspiring.

And I know they got injuries too.

Michael Porter Jr.

is out and they got a whole bunch of young guys, but God, watching the Thunder just curb stomp them on Wednesday night was, was, was hard to watch.

And it makes me wonder if we're, if the NBA is gonna make the league worse by adding two more teams to it.

Look, Tracy McGrady said the exact same thing you did on his podcast and that I saw that make some waves.

I think it's a completely valid question.

Um, but these owners, like almost every other billionaire in the country are certainly male billionaires.

Like we've seen a real uptick in female billionaires donating tremendous amounts to charity.

So, hands up for that.

Um, but frankly, there are a lot of billionaires in this country and some of the NBA owners are among them who still need personally to get richer.

I don't know why.

I, I, I, You know, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, like you, your grandkids, your grandkids, grandkids will never run through that money.

And so there is really You see it wreaking havoc with our country.

The gap between haves and have-nots is just wider than it's ever been.

But you see it possibly wreaking havoc with the NBA.

I have been a proponent of relocation.

I obviously, you never want a team to, I mean a city to lose its team .

I grew up around the DC area, but I saw fans in Baltimore lose their football team.

It, it sucked, and they eventually got one back in the middle of the night.

But the truth is that Some franchises would be better off in other cities.

They're expecting Seattle and Las Vegas to, once they clock in, be the, around the 8th best revenue generators of the 32 team league, which is, you know, a huge jump from where the teams you were just talking about are now.

Um, that is probably the smarter thing to do.

However, the more financially advantageous thing to do is to get those expansion fees.

I did a little math that $8 to $10 billion that you were talking about.

That nets out to about $500 million per owner.

So apparently Steve Ballmer, the like 3rd or 4th richest guy in the world, needs an extra $500 million and that will affect the game you and I watch, um, you know, some of these other guys.

We have, we actually have a number of billionaires now in, in the NBA ownership group, and I, I don't think just like with so many other things, they are taking into account the effect of chasing these dollars.

You know, I hear people all the time being like, they really should reseed the playoffs 1 through 16, travels different now, whatever.

It's never gonna happen.

Why?

Because the owners want their money, and the owners in the east want their money as much as the owners in the West, and by staying in that cauldron of the East, they have a better chance of their team advancing, more playoff revenue, more TV revenue.

They're not gonna do it.

When you say, oh, why do we pick All-Stars this way?

Shouldn't, shouldn't the All-Star pool come out of the entire League, because it's not fair that guys don't make the West team when, you know, scrubs or, or, you know, not scrubs, but guys who probably shouldn't be in an All-Star game are making it the team in the East.

It does make more sense.

But guess why it won't?

Money, because owners want an All-Star that they can put on the poster that they can sell tickets for.

And again, the owners in the East are not going to sacrifice that just so it's quote, more fair or better for the fans or better for the game.

And here we are again, money.

These guys did, the reason why this took so long.

is because there was a real debate inside the NBA office and inside, um, you know, not by the office, but inside sort of the ownership circles of, do you want this $500 million payout now?

But going forward, every dollar the league brings in, including from new TV details, etc.

will be split 1 out of $32 instead of 1 out of 30.

And how much of a difference will that make?

What is your calculation on which will net you more money over time?

And frankly, again, money, that is.

The reason we've had to wait so long, fans in Seattle, wait so long, fans in Las Vegas, for this to even happen, because that debate was going back and forth.

And I think there's a feeling that this last TV contract was such a bonanza that was split 1 out of 30.

They might not reach that again, you know, next time because attention keeps getting diversified.

So, this is the time to go get that $500 million each and, you know, decide you're going to give up 1 out of 32 instead of 1 out of 30 of every $1 that comes in.

But, I, I, you know, I'm thrilled Seattle is getting a team back.

I think Vegas is a fun market, and I'm, I'm happy they're getting a team.

But I, I hate the way this is going down, and, and I don't know if it's a talent issue because we have international talent and we, we never had before.

But it does, it is gonna hurt the game for a while and it's gonna hurt the fans, and that's a bummer.

Yeah, I think that, and I was talking to a few people about this this week, that I think that it's in some ways pretty short-sighted by NBA owners to grab the cash now for all the reasons that you're, you articulated there.

Because Uh, look, and, and I'm gonna bring something else into this conversation, the idea of shortening the season.

I think there's a way.

Look, there's no, there's no, there's no doubt that if you shorten the season.

You're going to lose money.

That's just a fact.

The TV money gets cut down.

The local revenue gets cut down.

But when I talked to team and league officials about this, one of the arguments for doing something like that, and maybe it's the same kind of argument for keeping the league the size of it is, and you can make this, the season more valuable.

You could make the season more meaningful.

Like the NBA.

I, I credit the league for all the little gimmicks they've done, the machinations they've used to make the regular season more interesting.

The in-season tournament is fine.

The play-in tournament is great, but the reality is, it's not baseball, but it's closer to baseball than it is to football in terms of a slog.

It is just a long slog that, It's just really hard for fans to care about for 82 games.

You cut 10 games off, you're probably gonna increase the quality of play.

You're probably gonna keep the injury numbers down even though the NBA is quick to point out that the injury numbers are down, that they're not as high as what people seem to think they are.

But the reality is, even if it's like injuries or concern over injuries, you're still, uh, worried about, uh, you're still dealing with, with that type of stuff.

So I, I think that.

I , I, I would hope, or it's not gonna happen.

Again, I believe the league is gonna expand.

But I think a, a good way to look at it is how much short-term pain are we willing to absorb to achieve long-term success.

And this is like the legacy in some ways of Adam Silver where it's like, you know, the, the next TV deal is a decade off.

The, the union in the, in the league can opt out of this contract in 2029.

So there's a, there's a cushion here to figure it out, but The idea of, of making the season more valuable, making the league more valuable by shortening it out.

That's not a pie in the sky fantasy.

You can do that, um, but you have to be willing to suck it up, take some short-term pain, take some short-term losses, players and owners both.

Everybody's gonna have to take some of that punishment.

Uh, but long term, I, I think there's, there's a great benefit that's not being talked about enough.

In this era of NBA ownership, we have seen more turnover than we did a while ago.

Owners used to own these teams, their families, they pass them down to their families.

We are now, the Boston Celtics ownership turned it over pretty quickly.

Milwaukee Bucks, we've seen guys buy in and then get back out pretty quickly.

When you have hedge fund guys, people who are used to making these kinds of deals, mergers, acquisition.

Positions and then getting out.

This is the mentality.

So they don't care what the league needs in 10 years and the next TV deal.

They want their 500 million now.

And of course, the time to have shortened the season, which we all know, I believe even they know in their heart of hearts would have been better for the league, not just long term, but short term.

My God.

If we had done that when the new TV package kicked in, do you remember what the total money is?

I just looked it up to remind myself $77 billion.

07 $76 billion a 13% increase from what they had been getting with ESPN and TNT.

So if you are getting People will pay you 13% more for the same number of games.

You could have said, you know what, 60-something billion dollars, that's probably enough.

Why don't we cut it back down to 60 dollars-something, so you're, we're not getting a full 13%, maybe we only get like an 8% raise.

And we cut the season in number of games.

So you're not paying as much as you would for 82 games, you're gonna pay us for 64 games, and And our price is only going to go a little bit up from what it was with ESPN TNT, which was still making plenty of money for everyone.

Um, but it'll be a shorter season, better long-term investment for the league, better long-term investment for the fans.

And frankly, I don't even know if they would have had to take that much of a haircut, because Amazon was desperate to get into this business.

I mean, they were courting the NBA.

You saw Amazon executives at every game, like for a year.

A5.

Um, ESPN wanted to keep those rights because they can't show highlights on SportsCenter if they don't.

So you kind of have ESPN hostage.

They will pay whatever you need them to pay.

You had NBC very interested and willing to make a big gamble to get back in because they are trying to prop up Peacock.

And Peacock is a streaming service.

One of the main reasons they got this NBA package was to make people buy Peacock.

People are like, Oh, I can't believe this game is on Peacock.

Why are they doing this?

That's why they're doing it.

They need you to buy Peacock, and that is why NBC spent so much money to get the NBA back.

So, I don't even know how much of a haircut you would have needed to take to go down to 64 games.

But again, God forbid, they take the tiniest haircut, because in their billion and billion dollars with their 16 jets and their grandkids' grandkids, you know, owning islands, places, they can't do it.

And it's just It's frustrating to me.

You know, it's, it's, as I said, I, I don't think it's political because it's not a right or left issue.

It is, there is hard numbers that in this country, we have just such a big wealth gap now, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of care and attention either in the real world or in the NBA that, hey, if you took a little less that you would never even notice, that your descendants would never even notice, there's only so much money you can spend.

Everything would be better for everyone else.

And it's a bummer because the NBA is a pretty progressive league.

Not in this way, it's about the money.

I'd like to point out that I subscribe to Peacock for the Day of the Jackal.

That is, you know, you do you, you , you're an NBC employee.

You don't count.

Still pay.

They still get my money every month along with every other streaming service I subscribe to.

Yeah, uh, points well taken.

Um, I, as I'm sure you think as well, the end result of all this is going to be big fat expansion fees, disseminated over owners, season staying at 82 games.

I, I think that the next kind of come to Jesus moment is probably in 2028 when both sides have to decide.

If they want to opt out of this collective bargaining agreement, and then maybe then we start to have some conversations about what's feasible about fixing.

Then you get a little bit closer to the next broadcast deal and maybe for some of these owners a little closer to reality instead of like a, a year that they're never gonna see as NBA owners.

So maybe then we start to get some movement, but for right now, you know, buckle up because two new Western Conference teams are coming.

The, uh, Minnesota Tims gonna move to the are gonna wind up.

Timberwolves certainly want it to be them.

Memphis is closest geographically, but the Timberwolves really want it because it would make sense with who they would play.

They have the longest flights to anyone in their conference of any team.

I did the two little notes though, I think are important.

First of all, I just want to remind people, especially people like me who miss the Sonics being in Seattle, that when they made the deal to move to Oklahoma City, part of the negotiation.

was that the Thunder would have to leave behind, not just the name, but the uniforms, the records, the logo.

When you go and you see, oh , who's got the most triple-doubles in that organization's history?

Who's the best defensive player in that organization's history?

It's not Gary Payton, right?

It is Russell Westbrook for triple-doubles.

It is all the other guys you talk about in Oklahoma City.

They had to leave all of it behind.

So, you will get not just a team back in Seattle.

You're going to get the Sonics back in Seattle.

And I think that is very exciting.

And the other wrinkle that you, a drum you have been beating, my friend, for years, is you said, uh , LeBron is going to go own the Las Vegas team.

He's going to retire and go straight to ownership, and he's going to own the Las Vegas team.

And you didn't take that out of the air.

He came out and said it in 2022.

He said, I want Las Vegas.

He's like, that team, when they put a team there, I want it.

So, so this isn't conjecture.

But the fact that his career has extended longer than, frankly, he ever thought it would, I mean, he's definitely said that out loud as well.

He's not going to qualify.

You cannot be a player owner in this league, it's a conflict of interest, so.

LeBron James will not own the franchise or have even a piece of it in Las Vegas unless he retires this summer and joins an owner of the group or a new process.

If in that that's intriguing because like you said, he, he has been talking about this publicly.

If there was an opportunity for LeBron James to jump onto an ownership group this summer, I could see him retiring for that.

Because he said no.

They asked him yesterday or the day before.

He, they said, hey, Las Vegas is now real.

What do you think?

What would you do?

And he came out and said, it, it's not gonna be me.

I'm not, I'm not doing it.

Well, there was that, there was some reporting on that before.

Then though that he wasn't in the mix for any of those perspective.

I, I, I would love, like there's, there's a lot of reasons I would love LeBron to like write his own book.

Like this is one of them.

I would love this chapter to be like the Las Vegas situation.

Like when did he start talking to people who's been talking to him.

I mean there's a great book in there somewhere.

I know some other people have written some great LeBron books over the years.

I would love an autobiography from him on a whole bunch of topics including this one.

That would be a good, uh, good punctuation point in his career.

Rachel, yep, yeah, another billionaire.

Well, he's earned it over the years, no doubt about that.

He absolutely has.

I mean, a lot of these guys have earned it.

LeBron has earned it for other guys.

LeBron has earned it for like from scratch, literally from, from scratch to be billionaires, and that is super impressive.

But there's a point.

If you are hoarding more than you can ever spend and anyone in your family could ever, ever spend, sometimes you do the greater good, and I'd love for them to do the greater good for the NBA, but that will not happen.

I'm not holding my breath on that one.

That is for sure.

All right, Rachel, good stuff.

We will do it again next week.