Peltoncast No. 505

We are instead going to start with semi-emergency pod style with the report from ESPN Shams Charania on Monday morning that I woke up to that the NBA will vote on.

Going forward in the expansion process with Seattle and Las Vegas is the only two cities at the board of governor meeting governor's meetings to be held in New York later this month.

So, you know, this is not in any way, I think, a surprise in the context of.

you know, the momentum that we've seen building in the last month or two here where, you know, the tone on expansion has changed really dramatically, really quickly.

And, you know, starting with Adam Silver saying at the All-Star break that expansion, the future of expansion was likely to be decided this year.

Since that moment, there have been a lot of signs pointing toward, you know, Silver feeling confident enough to take this to a vote.

And there's going to be multiple steps, multiple votes in this process.

But this is obviously a key one.

And, you know, closer than we've gotten on expansion at any point since 2008 when the Sonics moved.

And so this vote, I guess, did this come as a surprise, the timing of this to you?

No, I mean, I didn't necessarily know that there would be a formal vote on this per se, but it did seem clear that they were going to inform the owners, the governors who make up the board of what they've learned about expansion and get – Silver had indicated that there would be a step in between them going out and talking to specific groups who wish to own teams in Seattle and Las Vegas.

So again, even though Silver has been very careful to highlight Seattle and Vegas and say he does not want to get our hopes up as part of this process, saying it is just going to be those two cities is a key piece of news.

And then I think the other piece of news is That is the biggest piece of news that's in here is the potential timing of returning to play in the 2028-29 season, which is at this point as quickly as it could realistically happen.

And so this vote that's happening is particularly just saying we're only going to look at these two cities.

The next step after that, after assuming this is approved, I guess, how often are things taken to a vote and not approved in a situation like this? Is there any precedent for that?

Well, I can think of something that got taken to a vote that wasn't approved, that being the Chris Hansen Group's purchase of the Seattle's.

I guess it was at that point the relocation of the Sacramento Kings to Seattle.

was denied by the Board of Governors in 2013, quite famously.

But that's kind of a more formal decision.

I do think there's still some degree of uncertainty about the actual vote on whether to award expansion franchises.

But to go forward with the next step in the process, it seems unlikely that there would be enough dissent to prevent that from happening.

then so what is that next step after this

that's going out and you know taking i we don't know whether they'll specifically take bids solicit bids but at the very least engaging groups in a more concrete way than they have at this point and i think that that's when you will likely see you know the the kraken for a long period of time have been very careful about we're not going to get ahead of the commissioner we're not going to get ahead of the commissioner We're ready when this happens, but we don't want to be too forward with things.

I think that will give them the opportunity to be a lot more public with their interest and what that could mean for the return of the Sonics.

But one of the things that Brian Windhorst said on NBA Today is that multiple groups are expected in both Vegas and Seattle.