Silver: Canada Back in the Mix for NBA Expansion Team
Posted on: June 12, 2025, 02:44h.
Last updated on: June 12, 2025, 02:46h.
- Silver makes comments about NBA expansion on Patrick show
- Grizzlies left Vancouver for Memphis in 2001
- 21 Canadians were on opening day rosters this NBA this season, most represented country outside U.S.
Canadians of a certain vintage will remember the NBA’s Vancouver Grizzlies, with names like Bryant “Big Country” Reeves, the first player ever drafted by the expansion team, sixth overall, in 1995, and will no doubt find comments made by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver interesting.
NBA Considering Expansion
Silver was on The Dan Patrick Show yesterday, where Patrick asked him about the possibility of NBA expansion in the short-term future.
Canada is in league sights, when the NBA gets around to seriously discussing expansion again.
It’s not obvious to me we should expand,” he told Patrick,. “I think it’s likely that, over time, we will. It’s unclear how much growth we will get as a result of [expansion]. When you’re adding expansion franchises, you’re diluting the competition. Say you’re adding two more teams, that’s two more teams competing for players, and you’re diluting your economics. We have locked-in television money now for the next decade, and you would have two more partners.
Grizzlies Left Vancouver in 2001
“Having said that, I do believe certain markets can potentially be added to the NBA, and that’s what we are going to look at … making sure we are represented all around the country. Maybe there’s more we can do in Canada, and Mexico City is a city we’ve talked about before. I don’t want to say specific cities, just because many have reached out to us to say they’re interested, and our reaction so far has been thank you for your interest, we haven’t taken any meetings with any cities.”
Still, Silver said the NBA has a board meeting during the Summer League in July, and they will be talking about it then.
Silver told Patrick he wasn’t sure if there would be an expansion team up and running in three years.
I don’t mean to tease people with this,” he said. “This is the summer we’re going to look at it seriously.”
Dramatic Increase of Canadians in the NBA
The Grizzlies departed Vancouver for Memphis in 2001, after joining the NBA, along with the Toronto Raptors, for the 1995 season. Poor performance on the court, low attendance and a weak Canadian dollar all played a part in that.
Canadian sports fans still remember the name Steve Francis, who pouted when he was drafted second overall by the Grizzlies in 1999, refused to play for the team and was traded away. Francis symbolized the organization’s ineptitude.
Meanwhile the Raptors would build to a point when they won a championship in 2019. In October 2024 Forbes valued the Raptors at USD $4.4 billion.
A weak Canadian dollar is a still reality, but perhaps Silver and the other owners see how well the Raptors have done since the Grizzlies left, and see new-found potential for robust attendance, in Vancouver or in Montreal, where an NBA team could play in the Bell Centre, where the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens play.
In the NBA Finals going on now, a record four Canadians are playing, including league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Thunder. Twenty-one Canadians were on NBA opening day rosters, making Canada the league’s most represented country after the U.S.
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