Jason Burgos
A new rumor suggests the San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets, and Dallas Mavericks will eventually be joined by a fourth NBA team in Texas. But it won’t be an all-new team, and instead, see Portland Trail Blazers fans get their hearts broken.
Beyond the ongoing playoffs and the upcoming NBA Draft, one of the biggest stories in the league’s offices is on expansion. With the NFL banking big bucks with 32 teams, the world’s top basketball league wants to also squeeze more money out of its sizable fan base.
All indications are that the league will add two more teams in the next few years, and they will likely be in Las Vegas and the returning Seattle Supersonics. Even with those additions, it still means that California remains the state with the most NBA teams — the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, and Sacramento Kings.
However, the state with the most land area in the union, Texas, could soon join California with four teams in the National Basketball Association, according to the Oregonian’s Bill Oram.
Could the Portland Trail Blazers be moved to Austin, Texas?
“Even if the cities of emeralds and sin get two teams, there are still plenty of large markets that want to get in the game. Nashville and Austin are the two most obvious. The proximity of Austin to San Antonio presents a challenge, but the easy geography and access to an exploding economy may be too much for the rest of the owners to ignore. If the door is even cracked slightly, you’d have to think the Dallas-bred Thomas Dundon would leap at the chance to get into his home state’s capital city.”
– Bill Oram
What’s interesting about Oram’s comment is that Dundon is the majority owner of the Carolina Hurricanes and the Trail Blazers. The NBA reporter isn’t suggesting the billionaire would buy a second team — nor could he. And he isn’t implying Dundon would sell his stake in the Trail Blazers less than a decade after buying it. No, he is insinuating he would move the Trail Blazers to Austin.
Such a move would be heartbreaking for basketball fans in the northwest, especially when they are likely to get the Supersonics back after they moved to Oklahoma City in 2008. However, considering how long it has taken to possibly get two more teams in the NBA, two more after that seems a very long time away.
