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Seattle and Las Vegas are one step closer to having NBA teams.

The league's board of governors voted Wednesday to approve a plan that will allow NBA officials to “formally explore potential team expansion” to those two cities, which have long been thought of as the front-runners to land franchises.

“Today’s vote reflects our Board’s interest in exploring potential expansion to Las Vegas and Seattle - two markets with a long history of support for NBA basketball,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said. “We look forward to taking this next step and engaging with interested parties.”

Silver will hold a news conference later Wednesday to discuss next steps. The league said investment bank PJT Partners has been brought on “as a strategic adviser to evaluate prospective markets, ownership groups, arena infrastructure, and the broader economic implications of expansion.”

Expansion isn’t a done deal. But it’s not just a dream anymore, either.

New Orleans guard Dejounte Murray was 11 years old when Seattle last had an NBA team. He grew up with hopes of being like Gary Payton, Ray Allen and Shawn Kemp, and even remembers a rookie who played for the SuperSonics named Kevin Durant.

It's been nearly two decades since those days ended. That said, Wednesday's vote should finally fuel real hope of a basketball revival for Seattle - and a new chapter in Las Vegas.

“It’s a basketball city, basketball culture, so it’s mandatory I think that they get it back over there,” said Murray, a Seattle native.

Added Orlando's Paolo Banchero, another Seattle native: “I think it’s been a long time coming for the city. I think everybody was pretty bummed out when they left. And since then it’s just been waiting and hoping that one day they will come back. I’m sure with the news, everybody’s excited. I know I’m excited for all the kids growing up because Seattle’s a really big basketball city.”

It is, and so is Las Vegas - which has become a major part of the NBA ecosystem even without a team.

The NBA's Summer League is held in Las Vegas each year and has become a can't-miss event for league executives, coaches, media, agents and even players who aren't taking part in the games. The championship round of the NBA Cup, the in-season tournament, has been held in Las Vegas as well. And the city used to play host to the occasional regular-season game; for example, in 1984, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the Los Angeles Lakers broke the league's career scoring record in a game against the Utah Jazz - who used Las Vegas for some of their home games at that time.

The idea of putting a franchise there might have seemed unlikely a couple of decades ago. Not anymore, especially not with the NFL's Raiders, the NHL's Golden Knights and the WNBA's Aces all already there and with Major League Baseball on the way.

“I think Seattle and Las Vegas are two incredible cities,” Silver said in December, speaking about expansion while in Las Vegas for the NBA Cup.

Assuming owners will eventually decide to actually expand the NBA past its 30-team footprint, there will be much to figure out. On the short list: the expansion fee (expected to be at least $6 billion), the timeline for adding the clubs (2028-29 would almost certainly be the earliest this could happen) and how the Western Conference will be realigned (at least one team is likely to join the Eastern Conference).

Golden State coach Steve Kerr said the SuperSonics were “one of the iconic franchises in the NBA.” The team left in 2008 and became the Oklahoma City Thunder.

“I was shocked when the league left Seattle,” Kerr said. "Incredible fan base. Great basketball market. A ton of talent coming from Seattle. Top 10 media market. Incredible sports city. So, it was kind of shocking to all of us when the league left Seattle. And I think we all hoped it would be a lot sooner than 18, 19 years, whatever it’s going to be, before they got back in the league.

“They belong in that city, and a team belongs there,” he added. “Those fans deserve it.”

(Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)

ORIGINAL STORY: 

The NBA may move a step closer to adding teams in Seattle and Las Vegas next week when expansion — which has been a topic for some time — will again be discussed by the league's board of governors, two people with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press on Monday.

A vote is planned on whether to go forward with those two cities as the sole expansion targets at this point, the people said.

The people spoke on condition of anonymity because those details were not released publicly.

It would take a three-fourths majority of governors to go forward, meaning 23 of the 30 teams would have to approve the motion. Owners are also expected to get an update next week on where the NBA and FIBA stand on plans for a new league in Europe, one of the people said.

ESPN first reported that the vote was planned.

Expansion being on the agenda is not a surprise: the board gathers for only a few meetings each year, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said on multiple occasions that a decision will be made by the end of 2026 on whether the 30-team league will add one or two new franchises in the coming years.

“Not a secret, we’re looking at this market in Las Vegas. We are looking at Seattle,” Silver said in December, while in Las Vegas for the NBA Cup final. “We’ve looked at other markets as well. I’d say I want to be sensitive there about this notion that we’re somehow teasing these markets, because I know we’ve been talking about it for a while.”

There have been countless factors to consider, including what the expansion fee for a new franchise will be — it will be in the billions, with some in the league thinking a number exceeding $6 billion is not out of the question — and what adding two more teams will mean for the on-court product.

Silver said last July that the league's owners wanted an “in-depth analysis” of what expansion would look like, including what it would mean for the dilution of talent and the potential effects — good and bad — of selling equity in the league.

If both Las Vegas and Seattle were added, it’s also long been believed that an existing team would need to be moved from the current Western Conference list into the Eastern Conference to create two 16-team sides of the league. Geographically, Minnesota, Memphis and New Orleans would be the most logical candidates to go from West to East.

Seattle had a team until the SuperSonics were moved to Oklahoma City in 2008. Las Vegas has wanted a team for some time; Basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson is among the names most often mentioned as part of potential ownership if a team gets awarded there.

(Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)