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This summer NBA Commissioner Adam Silver hinted at a possible expansion in the league. It would make sense to add two more teams and move to 32 overall.
Amongst many, Seattle and Las Vegas are the two most likely teams. Seattle lost their beloved SuperSonics to Oklahoma City and Las Vegas, a flourishing sports town, is trying to get an NBA and MLB team after acquiring the Raiders in the NFL and the expansion Golden Knights in the NHL.
Silver assumed the expansion would “invariably happen” sometime. So if the NBA expands, what teams will we get to see?
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The NBA would likely use an expansion draft as they last did in 2004 when expanding with the then-Charlotte Bobcats.
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An expansion draft is when a new team or teams select players from the current existing rosters to make their team. The new expansion teams get to draft current players in the league and acquire their contracts instead of solely filling out their team by drafting rookies and signing free agents.
How would an Expansion Draft possibly work?
The expansion draft is speculative. There are no official rules or guidelines on how the NBA would do it with two potential new teams in the future. However, we can guess how given the previous expansion drafts.
The first main rule would allow each team to protect around eight players. This means the expansion teams will only be allowed to select players who are not on the protection list.
Also, each team will have to give up one player in the draft, meaning they would only lose one rostered player.
The two potential expansion teams can select players from other rosters. Around 15 players will be selected for each team, and the current teams will give up one player to the new teams.
The teams can then draft players in the normal draft or execute trades later in the season to keep building their teams. The expansion teams could likely struggle in the beginning as they are starting from scratch and teams are allowed to protect their best players.
