Article content material
NBA commissioner Adam Silver indicated that he was discussing with a Montreal group in regards to the arrival of a attainable enlargement group within the metropolis.
Silver addressed the subject in a tv interview in the course of the Boston Celtics-New York Knicks recreation Monday evening. He notably indicated that he didn’t rule out the potential of establishing a brand new franchise in Canada, in Montreal or Vancouver, and even in Mexico Metropolis.
Article content material
The NBA commissioner, when requested about attainable enlargement, stated the league would research the choice after the tv rights are renewed — the present deal will expire after the 2024-25 season.
“That’s turn into an excellent basketball market,” he stated of Canada. “I’ll say the Toronto Raptors have achieved a great job … of creating themselves Canada’s group. I do know there’s curiosity from Montreal. There’s nonetheless ongoing curiosity in Vancouver.”
In complete, 27 Canadian gamers are at the moment taking part in within the NBA — a development that has not gone unnoticed by Silver. The latter additionally recalled the latest successes of the Canadian males’s basketball group, which managed to win the bronze medal on the FIBA World Cup final summer time, defeating america.
No nation apart from america gives as many gamers to the NBA as Canada. Among the many greatest Canadian stars within the league are Montrealers Luguentz Dort (Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder), Bennedict Mathurin (Indiana Pacers) and Chris Boucher (Toronto Raptors), in addition to Ontarians Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Thunder), Andrew Wiggins (Golden State Warriors) and Jamal Murray (Denver Nuggets).
“It started a lot as a hockey market once we first expanded there,” Silver instructed NBC Sports activities Boston. “Younger folks love basketball now. Clearly, they nonetheless love their hockey there, however there will likely be extra alternative over time.”
A gaggle of businessmen who’ve been making an attempt to ascertain an NBA group in Montreal for greater than six years, which notably contains Quebec politician Michael Fortier, stated there “is nothing to report” on this topic final March. Fortier added throughout the identical public outing that an NBA enlargement group would value between US$2 billion and US$3 billion.
The Thunder confronted the Detroit Pistons in an NBA preseason recreation on Oct. 12 on the Bell Centre.
The Grizzlies performed in Vancouver from 1995 to 2001, earlier than shifting to Memphis. Since then, the Raptors have been the one Canadian group within the NBA.
Associated Tales
Share this text in your social community