#25: Addition by Subtraction
A discussion around the NBA increasing, or decreasing, the number of franchises by two.
J.D. Crabtree: Cooks,
Welcome back. Also welcome back to the summer of new beginnings and reopenings and new variants.
The basketball world has been mighty volatile in our writing hiatus. Midwestern championships. Durant-led gold medals. Dennis Schroeder's horrible agent. There's also been some lulls, as our sport tries to recover from a high anxiety year before kicking off competition at all levels.
This leads me to our topic. We can all agree that the growth of basketball is a good problem to have. But I sense other real micro-problems. Mainly around talent capacity.
Basketball has the smallest rosters out of all the major team sports, so ya, less room for individuals at the highest level. The rising players (lottery picks and Jokics of the world) are always going to have their slots when entering the league. The best players (Paul, Lebron, Tatum, etc.) are always going to be in the league for 20 years till they leave on their terms. But there's a lot of talent in the middle that is constantly squeezed.
I think the NBA should look into a two team expansion to mirror their 32-team approach. With the rise of the G League, NBL, and elite overseas stints there is clearly a need being met for Tier B talent.
Why not trend in that direction and capture more market? Why not have two more cities with two more stars?
Carter Pearson: John — welcome back indeed. And to the Mid Range readers, all 7 of you, we apologize for the delay.
I love this question, mainly because I disagree wholeheartedly. I’d rather take away two teams than add them.
Stars have always sought out other stars. That’s a given and will continue to happen as long as we have AAU relationships (LeBron/Melo) and USA Basketball. The best want to play with the best. They also want to play with DeAndre Jordan for some reason, but c’est la vie.
Adding two teams would give us room to grow globally, which I love, but would just further push the current small market teams down the abyss.
Zion is definitely leaving the Pelicans to go play for the Knicks. What if Luka decided he wanted to go lead the Paris Pirouettes and took Jokic and Giannis with him?
Even if we kept these new teams local, stars will still congregate with other stars. That means we just end up with more irrelevant teams and more irrelevant mid-March games that I don’t want to watch.
If we go the other way, the talent level rises and we (hopefully) see strong competition between 5-6 super teams each year.
This also allows for some roster construction differences among elite teams. In a situation where everyone’s 8th man is a little bit better, do you go for 3 stars and then scrubs (a la the Nets)? Or do you take a souped up version of the Suns approach? Only in this scenario, maybe you don’t have Cam Payne as your lead guard, but someone like the aforementioned Dennis or Derrick Rose.
I’m sure there’s a bunch of reasons why this is wrong (mainly money), but I’d rather see 5 less NBA games per year for a 10% increase in quality across the board.
Now, tell me why I’m wrong.
JD: But 7 powerful readers they are. Loyalty shall never be overlooked.
Back to your "change my mind" meme.
DeAndre Jordan must be irreplaceable on bachelor parties. And PJ Tucker has to have the street cred of Kendrick Lamar. These guys keep getting the call, but there will always be social outliers.
Alright, so if stars are always going to head to Los Angeles, greater New York City, and wherever Dwayne Wade is playing, there is still an argument to expand. Keep in mind my priorities are to increase footprint, further replace baseball in power sports rankings, and allow more talented young men to be playing in the NBA. I don't want NBA level talent thinking overseas is a real option, or bouncing around in the G League for too long. I want the newly expanded Missoula Mountaineers or Fort Lauderdale Floral Gardens drafting failed Kentucky 5 stars but ideally creating more Milwaukee Bucks outcomes.
OK, being serious. Right now there are thirty teams consisting of around 15 players per team, which comes out to 450 stable contracts per year. I don't care about the real number and 10-day nonsense. Guys with promised futures. For the fastest growing major sport, which is stealing more and more of our best athletes, I think there is a case for 30 more stable contracts in 5 years.
My approach also semi-supports your dream. I believe we are heading for 5-6 super teams regardless if we have 30 or 32 teams. So let the elite keep congregating, we are never going to stop this trend.
Are you, gasp, being a basketball capitalist?! We must have more basketball for all Cooks!
But I'll dance with your devils. Since you want to shrink, which two markets are you eliminating? Keep in mind you have to deliver the speech at the town hall to a bunch of 10-year olds wearing the team's jerseys.
CP: Oh I’m here for this. And I’m going to crush the dreams of two franchises that currently have incredible young stars. Our contraction draft is going to be amazing.
Goodbye, Pelicans, we hardly knew ye.
Goodbye, Thunder, tank quietly into that good night.
The case here is simple: both of these franchises are basketball teams in football states that are at best the third most popular team in the state. The Thunder fall well behind OU football and basketball.
The Pelicans might be seventh — after the Saints, LSU football and basketball, LSU gymnastics, La Tech women’s basketball (a former powerhouse) and LSU women’s basketball (any Seimone Augustus stans in the house?).
The Thunder are also easy to contract because an oil and gas billionaire teamed with a defense contracting billionaire and stole the team from Seattle. Either give it back or go away.
The Pelicans would have trouble filling an elementary school multipurpose room with fans to yell at me. After lighting up Jersey sales charts as a rookie, Zion wasn’t even in the Top 15 during the second half of 2021. I think he will be playing closer to us in the near future.
Have I convinced you? Or at the very least have I convinced you that the Thunder should go back to Seattle? And I hinted at this early, but what are your thoughts on overseas expansion? Give me the México City Mariachis vs. London Layups over anything to do with Fort Lauderdale.
JD: Yes and no. What I am seeing is two bad markets, with one of them showing the ability to be a fun destination when decent (the great Durant years in OKC). But if the option is to choose OKC vs Seattle that is too easy and the least spicy take on basketball earth. Seattle's fans are insane (Seahawks, Sounders) and that region is a sneaky basketball hub.
New Orleans basketball doesn't/hasn't/won't work. I have no idea why outside of your aforementioned pecking order, but they failed. I am fine eliminating them. Who dat?
With my glass half-full approach I am looking for three better markets to capitalize on the country's growing fandom. Here are five cities that are worth being in the conversation for the three-team expansion to get us to 32:
- Las Vegas (growing sports city. entertainment hub. fun away city for players. Raiders are making it work.)
- Baltimore (the traditional Amtrak cities love to hate each other, let's give them one more sport to do this with.)
- San Diego (because everyone uses this city as an option for expanding footprint regardless of industry or market aspirations.)
- St. Louis (way more of a basketball city than football city, so I don't want Rams references. you'd also get some of the southern Illinois basketball crazies.)
- Austin (at some point a major sport has to try it. we can't be scared of the Longhorn Network forever.)
Keep in mind my preference is to add Seattle and keep OKC so we only select two from above, Las Vegas being my frontrunner.
International expansion is one of those ideas that sounds great in the boardroom - then you have all the nitty gritty details that would make this suck for everyone involved outside of the front office. The teams are pretty locked to operating in North America. A London team is a logistical nightmare. Let's even start with the fans. We would all have to do those weird things you do when Arsenal is playing: wake up 7 AM or something, stream on laptops in bed, miss parts of the game due to Zoom meetings, etc. Sure it is basketball in the middle of the day, but I only enjoy that if it's a tournament (NCAAT, Olympics), not a regular season matchup hosting the Timberwolves. The players on both continents also are dealt with separate, but similarly grueling side effects. London players are constantly on red eyes and long flights.
Any west coast team bouncing over to play the London team is out of question. Every team's schedule would have to build in some east coast pit stop both ways for it to make sense. And does that mean the London team goes on 2-3 week stints in the states? Doesn't seem fair.
Mexico City could work on paper, but I'm not sold on the fan base attaching to a team compared to how it worked in Toronto. I need to do more research on Mexico's interest in basketball before I consider this my stance. Population is there, so step 1 is complete.
If we expand across the Atlantic I would rather do it with more than 1 team. Ya it increases the risk but the more action and more conditioning fans have to check on the European teams the better.
These are all my expansion thoughts for now. My big thing is about capturing more of the sports population on the fence rather than shifting it to the markets that have no problem with their fans. What are your final takes on this decision? Are we maxed out? Does a Baltimore basketball team infuriate you?
CP: All well reasoned points except for Baltimore basketball team. GTFOH with that. Baltimore has many cool things — crabs, horse racing, elite lacrosse boys with long hair, incredible scenes for an HBO drama.
Basketball is not one of them.
All of the cities you listed are fine places. But they are boring. I travel a lot and wouldn’t be excited to go to any of those cities unless work was paying. And from a fan base perspective, I don’t see any of them really breathing pro basketball.
And yes, Europe is a logistical nightmare that wouldn’t be worth it. There’s a reason (outside of MLS teams being bad) that the Super League only included European teams.
OKC should go back to Seattle. That’s a no brainer.
For the other team — Mexico City is perhaps the greatest city in the whole world. I legitimately want to move there.
They’re getting a G-League team!
Don’t read that article though, because Los Capitanes van a jugar en Texas debido a COVID.
Mexico City (CDMX from here on out) has the best food in the Western Hemisphere (outside of maybe LA), incredible energy, an up and coming basketball scene and is at elevation.
I mean, look at these hoopers. Los Patos get buckets.
Link: https://local.mx/ciudad-de-mexico/canchas-jugar-basquetbol/
More reasons for selection: I love cities at elevation because then we get to talk about how that affects road teams. How do we properly asses Nikola Jolic’s performance against the future CDMX team? If he’s sluggish, is it because he went to Pujol for dinner, then went to Los Cocuyos for 28 tacos and then chased it with some artisanal mezcal? Maybe.
Did I pick Mexico City just so I could talk about tacos? Definitely.
After all of this, I still think 30 is the correct number of teams, but two of them are in the wrong cities. Swap NOLA and OKC for CDMX and Seattle, and that’s a huge upgrade from any standpoint — fan base, city, content, globalism, intrigue. All are improved by this swap.
The players get four more legit cool away games, the owners get access to a new market and tons more money. And Seattle gets their team back. If we can find a way to make Clay Bennet sell, I think we have a win for everyone.
Call it in to the Commish!
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