The NBA needs to ask itself some serious questions about expansion
Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes
Happy Friday, Winners! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you’ve got a great weekend planned ahead of you.
The NBA has been making some power moves on the business side of things. We’ve heard all about the league’s upcoming television rights deal, which we’ll actually get into a little bit later in the newsletter.
But what I want to touch on here today is expansion. It’s coming. And it’ll probably be here pretty quickly after the league wraps up its new TV deal.
At this point, the NBA has been talking about expansion for years. Adam Silver has maintained that the league would explore expanding further after the business with the TV deal wrapped up. He reiterated that again to reporters earlier this week.
Well, here we are. The deal is just inches away from the finish line with Turner Sports holding things up. With that in mind, Silver says expansion discussions about expansion will begin “in earnest” this fall.
But what do those discussions look like? What do they entail? The league has to ask itself if it’s the right time to expand. Parity has taken over NBA basketball over these last few years. The NBA has landed in a sweet spot where the talent pool isn’t too dense with stars stacking up on a few teams at a time. Almost every team has a player capable of being an All-Star.
When you expand, you dilute that product. Just simply adding two teams means adding 24 roster spots. A majority of those players will come from teams that are already well-balanced. Does the NBA want that? What does that mean for the product?
That doesn’t even touch on the logistics of it all. Where would these teams be located? What’s travel like there?
This isn’t an argument against expansion. These are just the essential questions the NBA will need to ask itself this fall. when discussions begin. Hopefully, the league finds good answers to them.
READ MORE: Seven most likely cities for NBA expansion
(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Speaking of the NBA’s new TV deal, it seems like there’s a chance that Turner may hold onto the league’s broadcast rights after all.
You know what that means? Inside the NBA might just survive these negotiations after all. I wrote about that a bit this morning for The Morning Win.
Turner has five days to decide whether it’ll match a deal from either NBC Universal or Amazon:
“Deadline reported on Wednesday that TNT intends to match the Amazon Prime Video offer, which is reportedly $700 million cheaper than the NBC bid. That won’t come easy. Considering how much money is on the table here, it will probably get ugly and litigious. The stakes are high.
But this is good news for fans hoping the Inside the NBA crew could stick together for the long run. Regardless of negotiations, we’re technically still getting one more season of the show, but so many people have grown up with this show and its incredible cast of characters. Charles Barkley and crew have worked their way into people’s hearts over the last few decades. Knowing that it’s on its last legs is a bit heartbreaking. Most people don’t want to see that simply go away.”
Amazon seems like Turner’s likely target here. If TNT decides to match, surely Amazon will probably try to fight it, considering how much money is on the table.
But the bottom line is this: As close to done as this deal seems, there’s still a bit more work to do before all sides can cross the finish line.
— Five undrafted free agent rookies who have really impressed so far in Summer League from Bryan Kalbrosky.
— Five second-round picks who have emerged as steals so far in the Summer League, again, from Kalbrosky.
— Indiana Fever broadcasters going crazy over Caitlin Clark’s record 19th assist will never get old to me. Meg Hall has more.
— The Golden State Valkyries are already doing some pretty cool things in the bay area.
That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for reading. Have a fantastic weekend. Peace.
-Sykes 
