The ongoing NBA off-Season will witness significant changes occurring not only within the franchises but also in the league itself. According to reports, the NBA is currently heading for a major expansion, which will grant its television rights to other networks, and add one or two more teams to the league in the not-so-distant future. With one part of the same expected to be finalized soon, plans for the others may materialize soon. Unfortunately, the same would come at the cost of conference realignment, which may affect the roster situation with respect to Anthony Edwards, Ja Morant, or Zion Williamson.

According to an update put up by Forbes Sports reporter Evan Sidery earlier today, conference realignment is set to be a prominent topic of discussion during future expansion talks. As of now, the current favorites for gaining their own NBA team include Las Vegas and Seattle. This would bring the old Supersonics franchise back to the limelight while introducing a brand-new franchise bearing the Sin City’s name. However, given that both franchises would come under the Western Conference category, one or two teams may shift to the Eastern Conference until an unforeseen future.

The Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans, and Minnesota Timberwolves are currently the top choices to be granted a spot in the Eastern Conference. In the end, the rationale behind this point comes down to only one thing: Location. The city of Memphis lies further east, at 90.0490 degrees West longitude than all other cities whose names are placed on the Western Conference franchises. New Orleans, at 90.715 degrees West longitude and 393 miles away from Memphis, lies the furthest.

Further, the city has some precedent attached to it as well since New Orleans Jazz, which was later named the Utah Jazz, resided in the East from 1974 to 1979 while the Charlotte Hornets, which came before the Pelicans, remained in the East for its first two seasons (2002-04).

As for Minnesota, the state is not at all in proximity to either the cities of Memphis or New Orleans. However, it is still not geographically placed in a more Western position than the rest of the franchises. Over the years, the Timberwolves roster has created history for being ‘the NBA leaders in air miles traveled’ each season. This is because their Western Conference counterparts like Portland (1,726 miles) Utah, (1,244 miles), Los Angeles (1,931 miles), Phoenix (1,642 miles), Sacramento (1,894 miles), and San Francisco (1,977 miles) are located quite far.

Sending any of the three franchises to another conference would destabilize things, especially for the players. Having practiced to play against specific players for years now, things will become upside down when having to play the majority of the regular season games with different franchises than before. For young players like Anthony Edwards, however, such a situation may work out.

Adam Silver hints that a future expansion is definitely in consideration

Plans about a potential expansion, and consequently a conference realignment, have been in discussion since 2022. With the NBA growing year by year, however, the ask for the same is increasing as well. For now, however, NBA commissioner Adam Silver wants to take things one at a time.

Back in June, Adam Silver held his annual NBA Finals news conference. He used the platform to discuss the next order of business that will be looking into beyond the existing 30 teams. However, he also added to it by stating, “It’s not preordained that we will expand this time, but I know there’s an enormous amount of interest out there. And to me, yes, there are wealthy individuals, institutions that would like to invest and buy NBA teams, but I think it’s on the league to look holistically because there is the dilution, of course.”

Before the thought of adding more teams could be brought into effect, the commissioner wants to lock down the media rights deal first. After moving on from TNT, the league has decided to sign a 11-year, $76 billion deal that would send its rights to ESPN, Amazon, and NBC. Furthermore, another thing that would require to be looked into first is the new batch of players that would be making up the bulk of these teams.

“I feel great about where the talent is right now in the league, but those players have to come from somewhere,” Silver added. “At some point, we’d like to look outside the United States, in addition to Canada. This may not be the right moment to do that, but I’m thinking long term as well.”

Which team would you like to see head to the Eastern Conference? Let us know in the comments down below.