Silver: Owners likely to urge exploring expansion

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday night that the NBA will discuss expansion at next month's board of governors meeting in Las Vegas and that he believes the league's owners will recommend the topic be formally explored.

Speaking at his annual news conference ahead of Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers, Silver said he hopes to "take the temperature of the room" regarding expansion at the July meeting and believes there is enough interest among owners to take the next steps in the process.

"There's been no lack of interest," Silver said. "I essentially have said to people from several different cities, 'We're just not engaging in that process right now.' I want to be fair to everyone. So I don't want to have meetings with some and not others. So if we were to say yes, we're now going to move into a more formal exploratory phase. We would take those meetings, and in addition likely we would engage with outside advisers who would look at markets, look at economic opportunities and media opportunities, etc."

Silver has said several times in recent months that the NBA is beginning to turn its focus to expansion, which has been informally discussed in league circles for the past several years. But Thursday marked the first time he said he expects expansion to become a formal discussion point at a meeting of the league's owners.

Silver cautioned that expansion isn't a certainty.

"I'd say the current sense is we should be exploring it," Silver said. "I don't think it's automatic, because it depends on your perspective on the future of the league.

"As I've said before, expansion in a way is selling equity in the league. If you believe in the league, you don't necessarily want to add partners. On the other hand, we recognize there are underserved markets in the United States and elsewhere -- I think markets that deserve to have NBA teams. Probably even if we were to expand, more than we can serve."

The last time the NBA expanded was in 2004, when Charlotte returned. Seattle and Las Vegas are considered the favorites to get expansion teams if the process is agreed upon.

Silver discussed other key issues:

• The winner of this year's NBA Finals will become the league's seventh straight new champion, the longest the league has gone without a repeat titleholder. Some have attributed this to the changes the league made in its collective bargaining agreement to try to level the playing field, but Silver said that wasn't necessarily the point of them.

"I can't say standing here that I'd envision we would have seven different champions over seven years," Silver said. "I would only say the goal isn't necessarily to have a different champion every year. As we said, it's to have parity of opportunity. Hats off to Oklahoma City and Indianapolis, two incredibly well-run franchises, top to bottom, that deserve to be here.

"Whichever team were to win, if they were to repeat, I wouldn't then be saying this therefore isn't working because I didn't go to a different city to hand out the trophy. I'd be saying that's the system we wanted to create, as long as there's a level playing field. Again, what we're focused is on the process that goes into building the team, not the outcome. So the outcomes will be whatever they are."

• Silver reiterated that the NBA likely will shift to some sort of Team USA vs. the World format for next year's All-Star Game in Los Angeles -- similar to what the NHL did this past season with the 4 Nations Face-Off -- but said the specific format hasn't been decided.

"I don't think a straight-up USA versus World makes sense," Silver said, adding that international players make up 30% of the league while American players account for 70%. "That's not what they did in the NHL, either. There probably will be some different teams we form.

"I think we can play off that nationalism. We are moving to NBC next year for the All-Star Game, where we used to be many years ago. We'll be smack in the middle of Winter Olympic competition on NBC. Our All-Star Game, which will be in the afternoon instead of the evening next year, will be coming right out of Olympic competition, going back to Winter Olympic competition after the game."

• Silver shot down the idea of reducing the NBA's 82-game regular season, saying it wouldn't work for a number reasons.

"Money's part of it, there's no question about it," Silver said. "We're a business. Having said that, I don't really see the benefit to reducing the number of games. People used to say you should reduce the number of games because it will lead to a reduction in a number of injuries. We have absolutely no data to suggest that. If that were the case, you would think you have more injuries in April than October. We don't see that. Or you would think you'd see more injuries in the playoffs than you do in the regular season. We don't see that either."