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Mat Ishbia: "I'm supportive of growing the game, so I'm pro expansion. Obviously, it depends on the situation and making sure there's the right partners and the right value. But I believe that Vegas is a market that we need to fill. I think Seattle is one. I know there's been talk about Mexico City. The way I look at it is expanding the game. NBA is a global game, and having 30 is a limited number. Can you get to 32? I'm going to go that many more. Can you grow, can you cover a big market like Vegas? I don't care that it's close to Phoenix. I'm excited. I think there's abundance, there's opportunity everywhere, and I'm supportive of it."
On "The Pat McAfee Show," Silver cited Seattle and Las Vegas as two strong contenders. Then, Silver brought up Mexico City, which has more than 9 million residents. “Largest city in North America,” Silver said. “Huge basketball base.” The NBA already has a G League team, the Capitanes, in Mexico City, and it has been holding exhibition games there since 1992. “Shorter flight from New York to Mexico City than from New York to Los Angeles,” Silver said. “You could see how that could work in our league.” Silver added that there has been discussion about building a new arena in Mexico City. “That’s not in the immediate plans,” Silver said. “But down the road, I think there is real potential there.”
The NBA is in the process of weighing bids from ownership groups who could control teams in the Las Vegas and Seattle markets. The NBA could begin playing in one of those markets as early as 2028. “We have been public about the fact that we are looking closely at Las Vegas and Seattle,” Silver said. “Las Vegas seems to have an insatiable appetite for sports and entertainment. Several groups now are thinking about building a brand-new arena in town. … Seattle has a great arena. It has a great NBA tradition there. So we are looking closely at returning to Seattle.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver appears to be upping the ante on the leverage game involving the possible future of the Seattle SuperSonics, multiple ownership sources told ESPN. We say "possible" with care because Silver left owners with the impression that a Seattle expansion team was no longer a lock at last month's board of governors meeting. Silver even reintroduced the idea of Mexico City as a possible destination. At the meeting, owners were told about at least one Mexico City-based group that has approached NBA expansion partner PJT Partners with a plan about launching a team and developing a new arena district there that apparently has caught the league's attention, several sources said.
Seattle and Las Vegas are already getting teams, so there’s nowhere else to go. First of all, the league is only exploring expansion. I assume it will come to fruition, but there are plenty of good reasons to pump the brakes, and some owners are going to remain unconvinced that it’s smart to further divide the pie with two more teams. 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 Dundon would leap at the chance to get into his home state’s capital city. Beyond those two, though: Kansas City, San Diego and Vancouver, B.C. make varying degrees of sense. And don’t forget Silver’s desire to push the league into Mexico City someday. That likely won’t be via expansion if the league is sitting at 32 teams.
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The NBA is sending Denver and Indiana to Mexico City for a regular-season game Nov. 7, the league said Thursday. The game will be the 35th in Mexico, all since 1992, and the 16th regular-season contest there. Other than the U.S. and Canada, no nation has played host to more NBA games than Mexico. "Hosting the 35th game in the country reflects the depth of the NBA's relationship with Mexico and the role this event plays in bringing the global game closer to fans locally, throughout Latin America, and around the world," said Raul Zarraga, senior vice president of NBA Latin America.
Tony East: Andrew Nembhard and Pascal Siakam are both out tonight, Rick Carlisle says. Jalen Slawson not with the team yet — he's in Mexico City with the Boom.
Mike Curtis: Asked Cooper Flagg about playing in the altitude in Mexico City, which is over 2,000 feet higher than Denver: “I’m not gonna lie. It was tough. I was breathing really, really hard for most of the game. At the end of the day, it was something everybody was dealing with.”
The NBA has seen tremendous growth, with an estimated 33 million fans in the country, said Raul Zarraga, vice president and managing director of NBA Mexico, which opened a Mexico City office in 2008. That’s an increase from an estimated 19.7 million fans in 2019, the last time the Mavericks played at Arena Ciudad de Mexico. “For fans outside of the U.S., the opportunity for them to enjoy a live experience of an NBA game is very limited,” Zarraga recently told The Dallas Morning News. “This is part of our commitment to provide this live experience to fans all around the world.”
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One notable ambassador for the Mavericks and the Mexico City Game is Eduardo Najera, one of six players from Mexico to play in the NBA. Najera, who was a Maverick from 2001 to 2004 and in 2009-10, encouraged his home country to embrace the Mavericks in March when the franchise donated a basketball court in Monterrey. “The Mavericks should be the team of Mexico,” Nájera said in a prepared statement. “This was my dream, when I was playing with the Mavericks, to do this type of event in Mexico. We want to continue the growth of basketball, specifically with the Dallas Mavericks throughout this country.”
Marc Stein: In an @AP story from Mexico City, Dallas’ Anthony Davis is quoted telling local reporters before today’s practice: “It is going to be day to day, But I feel better — that is for sure.” Davis left Wednesday’s win over Indiana with what the team listed as left lower leg soreness.
As one of the league’s few active players of Mexican descent, Jaquez’s connection to the region runs deeper than most. After playing in Mexico City as part of the NBA Global Games last season, he expressed strong support for the city’s readiness to host a full-time NBA franchise. “Yeah, it was a great experience,” Jaquez told RG.org. “The fans had a great time and really embraced us and the NBA. I definitely think it’d be a great location if the league wants to expand. It’s a beautiful city with a lot to do down there. I think it only makes sense — there’s already a team in Canada, so to have one down in Mexico would be great.”
Marc Stein: Anthony Davis is expected to be ruled out of Dallas’ game Saturday in Mexico City against Detroit after exiting Wednesday night with left lower leg soreness. An official status update remains TBA after Davis was listed earlier in the week with bilateral Achilles tendinopathy.