Seattle is the obvious number 1 choice. After that, I have:

Las Vegas
Louisville
Pittsburgh
Kansas City

Montreal would be nice, but if players didn't want to be in Toronto of Vancouver, there's no way they'd want to be in FRENCH Canada. What are some other wildcards? VA Beach? Columbus? Chicago?

and fix the playoff system so the wackass east dont have 8 teams.

the playoffs that had any chance at winning the whole thing.

>and fix the playoff system so the wackass east dont have 8
>teams.

Charlotte
Sacramento
and Minnesota

gun to my head for a 2nd EC team

Toronto

fuck 'em

they never did shit, and never will.

So, I agree with ya here.

Sonics should have never left in the first place.

After them I'll say Las Vegas. I hope we get some kind of pro team here. There's been talk of building a huge multi use stadium here for at least a decade. Vegas not only wants a pro team, they want to be able to host a Super Bowl.

USA Basketball (August)
UNLV MBB (Winter)

If loves anything, it's hoops and MMA. And there's definitely money for a stadium.
There's definitely a fan base here that could support a professional team.
Vegas was real close to landing an NHL team.

Summer league is in the middle of tourist season so it's perfect for fans who both wanna catch a game and party at night and are already out there or can make a destination of it. The NBA regular season runs from November to April though when the place mostly deadens out minus some big holiday weekends... they aren't going to get a big bump in attendance from tourists who want something to do on a Tuesday in February. UNLV basketball definitely gets decent interest but it's definitely closer to a smaller market in size (about the same metro population as Sacramento) and it's not like they'd start poaching fans from neighboring states since CA/AZ/UT are already covered.

That being said I really really want to see the crazy home court advantage a Las Vegas NBA team would have from opposing players out all night before.

some january/february games are gonna be empty.


Theyd really have to be about the experience and building a great, fun crowd/fan experience at the arena an dthen if they could draft that one transcendent star....

theres alot more to it than jus no fanbase.... gambling, organized crime etc..are all factors as to why they aint never gettin a team

2nd would be Pittsburgh for the same reason

but seriously

there's too many teams now

expansion is a terrible idea.

You see the type of bad broads they got up there?

But nah I don't think Montreal is even in serious contention.

When I look at it, the sites all kind of suck. Moving a fledgling franchise to Seattle would be the ideal move.

KC ain't getting shit, they built that arena for nothing.

Pittsburgh's hockey arena is great but ultimately it's a small-ish and somewhat fickle market.

VA Beach and Louisville strike me as very strange choices.

Vegas is very likely to get an NHL team but I don't think the NBA will do it. If anything they will let Bettman feel out the waters then jump in after him well into the future.

I personally have not heard a second Chicago team being discussed. Seems like an iffy proposition but might work. Columbus is like a poorer, smaller Vegas. Lots of go-through residents rather than go-to and stay-at residents. The Blue Jackets have an OK baseline of support but nothing too solid. If you ain't OSU, no one really cares.

It's already got the Yum! Center and a big-time corporate sponsor.

Like 800K tops, OK throw another 500K in the surrounding area. I always think pulling from not-so-distant big markets is a weak selling point, but I guess Cincinnati is less than two hours away (much closer than it is to Cleveland).

It's very average in terms GMP and GMP per capita, I mean when I hear "the only game in town" I think that's attractive in a place like San Jose but not so much in a place like Birmingham, which is pretty close to Louisville in terms of population and the broadest economic stats.

28th largest city, but the 50th largest market

huge capacity for hoops and i know it had some luxury boxes, suites, etc ... but i dont know that it was built with the NBA in mind.

to me an expansion seems unnecessary on SO many levels.

does it really matter?

wonder what bin's doing?
http://i.imgur.com/phECCMp.jpg

If Vegas couldn't handle the All-Star game, then handling a pro team would just be crazy (the team would have a DECISIVE home court advantage though)

From what my boys told me, Montreal is an unbelievable place (the Knicks and Celtics play pre-season ball games there...see all types of players end their marriages on the low...lol). But if players are complaining about playing in Toronto (which is a better city, especially sports wise), then Montreal has no hope.

Having a team in Baltimore might be interesting. Bring back the old Bullets and have a little I295 rivalry going

but if they added any, Seattle has to be one of them

no ideas on the other one. I think most of the places thirsting for B-Ball have a team

NHL doing this bullshit, too. I would not be surprised to see a lot of connection. I think if Seattle can get two teams into one building it would influence the NHL's decision. Right now there are only two legitimate candidates, Quebec City and Vegas. I am disappointed there, too, it's already tough enough with the salary cap to maintain a good team, now they are thinning the talent pool further.

I've heard too many things about Vegas and how gambling is the reason no major leagues will start a franchise there. It really is purely a tourist city...and a city for folks tired of paying L.A. prices for homes.

And it's a bad idea.


Rather see Vegas or St Louis
____________________

<================== Learn the name now before everyone gets dunked on

Nobody even wants to live in that shit, it's wack. The strip gets old 3 weeks after moving there

____

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IG : H_N_Z

.

Silver already said many teams "are not making money" (obviously a CBA leverage play, there are a shit ton of accounting methods to play with revenue, as needed)...so I use that and say hell no to expansion, relocate those teams which are deepest in the red to the citiesy with the best plan and highest potential for revenue.

Were they that forgetful?

http://media.tumblr.com/f28f8ec06ac5cfe3e165e6f86c49ab32/tumblr_inline_mpc5k683Pn1qz4rgp.jpg

Seattle
Las Vegas

or

Pittsburgh
Kansas City

Seattle - No Brainer
Baltimore - Because I live here
Austin - Just an excuse to go visit there again

too close to a bigger market.

is going to be a disaster. Unless the team is winning right away, they're going to be dead last in attendance by year 4.

Like, it's seriously somewhere you go to party, and...that's where it stops. A lotta folks moved there 15 years ago because it was cheap, then realized the shit was deceiving. Barely any corporate jobs, and hard to really have legit positions at Casinos. High crime rate. Overly immoral as shit. Just not really a great city at all.

Has the general culture of St. Louis changed enough to support an NBA team?

The sentiment about ten years ago was that the NBA was 'too Black' to attract enough support from the community.

Massive L.

The prices are different, the style of play is different, there are fewer white players, etc.

Most of their crowds look 60 and over and WHITE!

St Louis is an iffy sports market. The Cardinals are uniquely successful organization and the baseball culture is strong in St Louis. The Rams might leave and the Blues have come close in the past. I look more at the overall market than the one really successful team in it.

As far as whiiiiiiiiiiteness, yeah, look at the Cards' lineup and manangement of late. Once home to Bob Gibson, Curt Flood, Willie McGee, Ozzie Smith, et al, it's pretty whiiiiiiiiite now. This was the place that lost its (very successful) basketball team because they weren't accepting of a black starting five.

If I'm not being a homer, for entertainment value I think Vegas would probably be the most hilarious.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

Once the Chargers leave for LA I think San Diego would be a great city for a NBA team.

The NBA is never going back there nor should they. I'd put a team in Mexico City first.