‘Writing is on the wall’: Talk of NBA expanding into Seattle heats up

NBA commissioner Adam Silver expects discussion about expansion to be one of the central topics when the league’s owners meet this summer.

That means hot spots for basketball like Southern California, Las Vegas, and, of course, Seattle will all be in the mix as a potential expansion city.

“It feels like there’s real movement now, in the long way, to bring the NBA back to Seattle,” Charlie Harger, co-host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio, said. “We’ve had these optimistic times before, but this one feels different, right?”

“What’s different this time around is the language that Adam Silver is using,” Chris Daniels, a veteran journalist with KOMO News, answered. “We’ve heard multiple times from the commissioner about when they may start an expansion process. At one point this time last year, he was saying in the fall. He was asked about it again this season, and then he got to the end of the season, and he basically gave a full-throated statement about the importance of Seattle and the fan base at the Board of Governors meeting, but again, did not commit to a timeline.”

According to Daniels, Silver is laying out the groundwork for an expansion committee to study possible cities for a few months this summer and turning in their results.

“Now that we’ve heard Silver specifically mention Seattle and Las Vegas, I think the writing is on the wall here,” Daniels said. “Once they start that expansion committee, it’s Seattle and Las Vegas, and in a few months after that, that’s when any sort of formal announcement will be made.”

Daniels cited that Climate Pledge Arena, ready to house an NBA franchise, has an NBA-ready locker room that’s just being used for storage in “the bowels of the arena.”

Who would own the Seattle SuperSonics?

“Who are we looking at in terms of potential owners?” Harger asked.

“Well, Samantha Holloway, who owns the Kraken, has already made it clear she would like to be a part of an NBA franchise,” Daniels answered. “Her family, the late David Bonderman, owned a piece of the Celtics, so she has been trying to put this group together to come up with potentially $4 or $5 billion. There are going to be multiple investors. There will be a long list.”

Daniels also shared he wouldn’t be surprised if the ownership group had a connection to Amazon, even throwing out CEO Andy Jassy’s name around in the mix. Amazon owns the naming rights for Climate Pledge Arena, and is already a partner with the NBA for the distribution of broadcasted games.

Listen to the full conversation here.

Listen to “Seattle’s Morning News” with Charlie Harger and Manda Factor weekday mornings from 5-9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio. Subscribe to the podcast here.