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The Last Thing the NBA Needs is a Couple of Expansion Teams
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This is pointless. Well, not for business, because expansion fees bring in some big money for the suits.
But in terms of things the fans actually care about, like basketball, how you can justify watering down an already diluted product?
Just last night, Tuesday, the Charlotte Hornets beat the Sacramento Kings by 44 points. Sacramento, with 19 wins, started two guys “Maxime Reynaud” and “Patrick Baldwin Jr..” The Kings have not won a playoff series since 2004, when Rick Adelman was coaching Peja Stojakovic and Vlade Divac.
Tonight in the Association, tickets start at $5 for the Washington Wizards at Utah Jazz, featuring a battle of two teams that have lost 22 of their last 23 combined games. The Wizards are in their eighth straight losing season and the Jazz are among the 8-9 teams that are currently tanking for draft position.
You can’t make a case for adding two more teams when one-third of them aren’t competitive on an annual basis, nor are they really trying. The Sixers’ injury list regularly looks like a CVS receipt and the amount of load management and back-to-back jockeying has made the regular season product generally unwatchable unless you happen to currently be a fan of the Celtics, Thunder, Pistons, Knicks, Cavs, Spurs, Lakers, and Nuggets. Each year, about one-third of the teams are contenders, the middle third are in purgatory, and the bottom third are trying to lose games in hope of landing a generational star in the draft.
We are all waiting for the NBA’s forthcoming anti-tanking and lottery reforms. Otherwise expansion makes no sense.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com