NBA realignment is coming. Who should go East when the West expands?

Weighing the three obvious candidates for a conference switch and whether more thorough realignment is in the cards.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Mount Adams, Washington; Albert Bierstadt; 1875

It’s been heavily rumored for years that the NBA was interested in expanding to a 32-team league. The chatter has picked up steam in anticipation of the league finalizing its next media rights deal, which will kick in for the 2025-26. Team valuations are also very high, and the odds of relocation for existing teams are relatively low. That combination should create very high franchise fees for the new ownership groups trying to get.

It’s widely expected that Seattle and Las Vegas will be the selected cities. Seattle has essentially been promised since Chris Hansen’s failed attempt to poach the Kings in 2013. I’m less sure of Las Vegas, though the NBA has increasingly embraced it as a place to do business. In the past decade, the city has added an NHL team, a WNBA team, an NFL team and possibly soon an MLB team. It seems like all of the leagues are all-in with Las Vegas for various reasons.

For this exercise, I’m assuming that Seattle and Vegas get the expansion teams. If that happens, obviously, both belong firmly in the Western Conference. That means you’d have 17 teams in the Western Conference and 15 in the East. That means you need to move one current West team to the East.

There are three serious candidates. Here they are, along with their cases.