If you’re looking for a status update on NBA expansion to Seattle, Give an assist to C.J. McCollum. The Portland Trail Blazer guard wanted answers this week when he interviewed NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for The Players Tribune.
As a Pacific Northwest representative in the NBA, McCollum referenced all the tweets he gets asking “is anything going to happen in Seattle? Are we ever going to get a team back in Seattle?”
Silver said he thinks it’s a question of timing regarding serious thought on expansion.
“Think about the state we are at in the league right now. It’s amazing to me we have fans coming out after these finals saying there’s only one good team in the league. If people really believe that, even though we have 450 of the best players in the world, and 450 can only form one really good team, it probably doesn’t make sense to expand in terms of dilution of talent.
“Now, I don’t really believe that, and I think these things correct themselves. And I don’t want to put a precise timeline on it, but it’s inevitable at some point we’ll start looking at growth of franchises.” said Silver. That’s always been the case in this league, and Seattle will no doubt be on a short list of cities we look at.”
Seattle has two groups working to bring the NBA back to the Emerald City. Chris Hansen has been pursuing the Sonics Arena project in the SODO area since 2011. In June, the city of Seattle and Mayor Ed Murray selected the Oak View Group proposal to renovate KeyArena at the Seattle Center.
Seattle has been without NBA basketball since Clay Bennett relocated the Sonics to Oklahoma City in 2008.
(KPUG – Doug Lange with information from The Players Tribune)