NBA Expansion: How Will The Arrival Of Seattle And Las Vegas Affect Other NBA Teams? Here's A Sneak Peek

On Monday, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that the NBA board of governors will convene next week to cast an important vote: Will they, or will they not, allow two expansion teams to join the league, possibly as soon as the 2028-29 season?

For years, the rabid fanbase in Seattle has clamored to host a team after their beloved SuperSonics were bought by a group that now owns the Oklahoma City Thunder. If the governors’ votes go these fans’ way, Seattle will re-enter the NBA map, along with a first-ever NBA franchise operating out of Las Vegas.

There’s no way, of course, that these expansion teams can operate in a vacuum. Their entry into the NBA will cause a ripple effect that affects all 30 existing squads. How could this play out? Let’s take a look.

The new Seattle and Las Vegas teams will likely populate their rosters via an expansion draft. The last time such a draft was conducted, the Charlotte Bobcats were knocking on the door as they were set to enter the NBA in the 2004-05 season.

During the 2004 expansion draft, existing NBA teams were allowed to grant “protected” status to a maximum of eight players who were under contract for the next season. It was from the “unprotected” pool of each NBA team that the Bobcats were allowed to make their expansion draft selections.

There’s a good chance, however, that Seattle and Las Vegas will be barred from drafting more than one player from each existing team. This was the case with previous expansion drafts.

Would the NBA deprive Seattle and Las Vegas of the chance to secure a key piece or even a franchise cornerstone from the annual NBA Draft? That’s probably not in the cards.

In fact, these two expansion teams might even get a great seat at the table. That was the case in 1995, when the Vancouver Grizzlies (now based in Memphis) were given the No. 6 overall pick while the Toronto Raptors had the seventh pick. In 2004, the Bobcats were gifted the No. 4 selection; they managed to swing a trade and get their hands on the No. 2 pick, which turned out to be UConn big man Emeka Okafor.

As if that weren’t enough, the entry of Seattle and Las Vegas would create an imbalance, as they would bump the number of Western Conference teams to 17. To achieve a 16-16 balance between the two conferences, one team currently assigned to the West may have to be reclassified as an Eastern Conference squad.

So, which team would it be? According to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps and Bobby Marks, three teams would be in the running: the Minnesota Timberwolves, the New Orleans Pelicans, and the Memphis Grizzlies. They went on to speculate that, due to geographical and logistical considerations, the Wolves will likely be moved to the East during the next period of expansion.