NBA commissioner Adam Silver sounds like he's more open to expansion than ever before and Seattle would be at the front of the line, if it happens.
Thursday on Jalen Rose's NY Post podcast, "Renaissance Man," Silver talked about multiple things, including expansion.
Rose asked him, "What U.S. city would you like to see host an NBA team next?" The commissioner barely flinched, other than to say he needed to be political, and proclaimed it would be Seattle.
"I hear from fans of the old Sonics fans in Seattle all the time and so there's no doubt when we do turn back to expansion... one day, that Seattle will be at the top of the list," said Silver.
The commissioner said he was sad about the "unfortunate set of circumstances that led to that team leaving."
You can hear his full answer in the YouTube clip below. It starts around the 22:28 mark.
All this comes on the heels of his Monday presser:
Via ESPN: Silver met with the media on Monday before the season began on Tuesday. "I think I've always said that it's sort of the manifest destiny of the league that you expand at some point," Silver said. "I'd say it's caused us to maybe dust off some of the analyses on the economic and competitive impacts of expansion. We've been putting a little bit more time into it than we were pre-pandemic. But certainly not to the point that expansion is on the front burner."
Sonics legendary coach George Karl tweeted out that he wanted to help.
OVG CEO Tim Leieweke answered coach Karl.
Silver has given Sonics fans some holiday cheer. But will the words amount to anything in the future? Only time will tell.
Seattle has been waiting for a franchise since the Sonics left in 2008.
