Expansion, exhaustion and ambition: inside Adam Silver’s vision for the NBA in 2026

The NBA Cup has gone from a promising novelty to a tournament struggling for relevance, particularly since the Los Angeles Lakers won the inaugural edition and up to the current third installment. Its prestige has steadily eroded, and players themselves seem unsure what to make of it, drifting with the current: if they are still alive and reach the knockout rounds, its importance suddenly peaks; if they are eliminated earlier than expected, they insist it was never that big a deal. Adam Silver, however, remains determined to inject interest into what is almost unanimously considered a tedious regular season. He continues to roll out new ideas – the Paris Games, the controversial All-Star format change – while gathering a constellation of former stars in Las Vegas to give the Cup some cachet. As usual, he also addressed the media, and this time he left few people unmoved.

The commissioner who succeeded the legendary David Stern, known for his magnetic delivery and his knack for sidestepping awkward topics, sometimes more successfully than others, tackled the defining issue of recent years: domestic expansion. That is, the future shape of the league itself, not the NBA’s ventures in Europe or its global reach. Expansion has been in the works for years, and Silver has now put a clear date on when news will arrive: 2026. In other words, it will not be long before the NBA confirms when new franchises will join, following a model the league has used several times in its history.

Silver also offered clues about where that expansion could land, pointing to one entirely new market and another with deep roots in the game. The first is Las Vegas, the city of gambling and spectacle, which the NBA has already embraced through the NBA Cup. It has been a convenient testing ground to deepen ties and assess whether the relationship could go further, or whether the T-Mobile Arena will remain just the home of an early-season tournament that wraps up in December. Las Vegas has glamour, represents a huge market compared with some existing destinations, and would be attractive to players. It is also very much to Silver’s taste. “I have no doubt that Las Vegas could support an NBA team,” he said.

The second possibility feels almost like a popular demand and a gift to nostalgic fans: Seattle. A city synonymous with basketball, it was home for decades to the Seattle SuperSonics, champions in 1979 and a cultural touchstone for the league. The Oklahoma City Thunder inherited that history after the relocation, and how that legacy would be handled remains an open question. So too does the possibility of realigning conferences if teams move from West to East or vice versa, and whether expanding from 30 to 32 franchises would mean more or fewer games in an already punishing schedule. There are still many unknowns, but what was once whispered now sounds increasingly plausible. Silver has said as much. And in 2026, we will know more.

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