32 Teams. Add Seattle + ?

[mmmmm]

expansion wont happen, like others said league is watered down with talent.

I don't know if it will expand, but I think it's fair to say that this ("the watering down of talent") is probably the _last_ issue of consideration.

All the league will care about is whether adding a city (or two) results in a growth in revenues.

When you add a city, you engage those fans there as part of your market.  Yes, the local team there gets the gate.  But the league shares the TV and merchandizing revenues drawn from those fans.

Obviously, marginal analysis would probably suggest that the net increase in revenues from any expansion shrinks at some point as you saturate the national market.  And it is probably not equal for all candidate expansion points (some cities would just rob fans already in the market for existing teams).

So it is not automatic that they would want to expand just anywhere for the sake of expanding.

But the motive to do so will be driven by profit motive and almost certainly won't give more than a passing thought to 'talent dilution'.

The Players Association also would generally motivated to support expansion, given it adds 15 jobs (plus temp and summer contracts) per city.

[Moranis]

expansion wont happen, like others said league is watered down with talent.

The league has more talent now than at any other time in history.

[Yogi]

There are not enough super star talent for even 20 teams let alone 30 or 32.  If you are lucky enough to draft a Lebron, Howard or Paul and they all leave anyway to play together at desirable locations what is the point? 

Lebron, Durant, Parker, Paul, Rondo, Howard, Wade, Rose, Westbrook and latest additions Marc Gasol, Joakim Noah, James Harden, Paul Geore and Steph Curry (Deron Williams is slipping out of this group).  These are the only playoff proven superstars in the league that are not about to retire in the next couple of years.  Irving has left little room for doubt but hasn't had the opportunity yet.  There are some who haven't proven themselves yet like Griffin, Love, Cousins, Aldridge, Wall, Lillard, Jrue Holiday.

That's 11-12 teams with established superstars which might become even smaller if Paul and Howard team up next year. 

Look at a team like Phoneix.  They were desperate enough to throw max money to get a totally unproven, injury proven guy like Eric Gordon and they couldn't even make that happen.  What chance is there that ANY superstar would ever play there?  They have to pray that they draft the next one and they are terrible at drafting. 

The absolute best case scenario for a small market is OKC who made it to the western conference finals with home grown superstar talent with unbelievable chemistry, which they had to partially blow up because they can't afford to pay three stars like Miami.  Not because of the CBA, but you got to pay a lot more money to convince someone to stay in OKC than to go to LA, NY, Texas or Florida. 

If Russell Westbrook, Durant and Harden would've taken a pay cut like Miami big 3 they might've had a shot at keeping that core together.  Don't get me wrong, they are pretty well off with lots of assets, but they're not the same level of contender as Miami when it comes to sheer talent. 

[Tgro]

I'm not opposed to dilution of talent so much as I am 1 or 2 teams get all the Superstars and the rest of teams just have to kind of pretend they are contenders with far inferior talent than those Superstar teams. If the talent pool can't go all the way around, I don't see why some teams get away with 3 or 4 while other teams you don't know a single name on the team. It's like playing your friend in a video game that he owns and has played it for the past 2 years daily and you play him on your visit over to his house. He then whoops it up like he's doing something and you've never even played the game. 

Anyway, I've never been graced with having a home team or reasonable driving distance to a home big league team. I'm from the Norfolk/Va. Beach area. My whole life (I'm getting old) we never had a Major League Team of ANY sport. Oh, we had the Virginia Squires with Dr. J back in the ABA, but that doesn't count.

Anyway, the Sacramento Kings deal got us all hot and bothered down here and for the record, I'm glad they are so far staying in Sacramento. But if they did leave, I wouldn't have minded them coming to us. Anyway, We finally had enough backing to make things happen but our city leaders are always forever slow on building a World Class Arena to make ourselves a legitimate contender for a team.

Sometimes I think the spoils of cheering for (in my case my lifelong favorite team) The Boston Celtics gets us a bit too much sometimes into thinking nothing but Rings. Sure, it's the goal. But sometimes I think people that have games to cheer for all the time and a successful club like the Celtics can't see beyond just being a title contender or else the season is a waste. While I'm a jaded Celtics fan too, I must feel like it would just be great to see the team play sometimes.

Sure, as an expansion, we'll be the laughing stock of the league and will be lucky to win 15 games a season for the 1st 5 years. So certainly, we will be labeled as diluting the team and deservedly so. But the joy would be buying tickets to the unrealistically fantasized about Va. Kings vs. The Celtics and seeing KG, PP, RR, and the boys playing right in our back yards. Even though I would expect the Celtics to stomp us 85 - 68, there wouldn't be ANYTHING diluted about that to me.

On the other hand, I don't care to see teams who had teams, lose one, and get one back again before other teams ever have 1 team at all (if they should actually deserve it).

I think a team in Vegas would be cool. Could be another Player Desired location with lots of glitz and glam.

I also don't think I would want to be the decider of what teams get contracted. Even when your scrub home team is losing 17 in a row, there is always some die-hards in the stands hoping for better days.

Good bless em.