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Over the past few years, there has been a lot of talk about the NBA and its potential for expansion. That expansion would allow more teams to enter the fray, something other professional sports leagues have done recently. Especially the NHL, as they’ve added multiple over the past decade. The NBA is a bit more complicated, though, because they haven’t expanded in a long time. So, who is the newest NBA team?
Who is the newest NBA team? The newest and “newest” NBA team we currently have is the Charlotte Bobcats. The team now known as the Charlotte Hornets. This expansion that brought in Charlotte dates back to 2004, but remains the newest addition to the league. What I’m trying to say is, it’s about time we start seeing another team in action. Of course, the premise is in the right circumstances.
Of all the possible new expansion teams, why did the league choose the Bobcats? Why were they flipped to become the Hornets?
NBA loves Charlotte
Back in 1985, the league made it clear that they planned to add three new teams before the 1988 season. Eventually, that number became four teams, one of which was Charlotte. Now you might be thinking, how did Charlotte become the most recent expansion team in 2004 when the league was looking to bring it back in 1985? The simple answer is that the Charlotte Hornets ended up becoming the New Orleans Pelicans, but that wasn’t the case. how they were introduced. The Charlotte Hornets ended up being the favorites in the NBA because they had one of the greatest stadiums of the time. Early in the league, they immediately looked for experienced talent to compete directly rather than rebuild and start from scratch. Their popularity declined rapidly as the years went by, and by the 2000s it was clear that something wasn’t working. The team made a ton of trades that made their roster worse, and the fans weren’t happy about it. Attendance declined rapidly, and the league approved a deal to send them to New Orleans. Concerned that they could face major lawsuits for canceling the Charlotte NBA team, the league announced that they would seek to replace the Hornets with a new team. So the Charlotte Bobcats came into play. The league eventually named Robert L. Johnson as the owner of the franchise and made famed hip-hop artist Nelly a co-owner along with many others.
How did they get renamed the Hornets?
The Charlotte Bobcats aren’t the most popular team in the league, but their numbers are better than ever. However, they were forced into a similar position to the franchise, just not as persistent as some others at the time. About 10 years later, a new leader of the organization started thinking about rebranding. The new leader happens to be arguably the best basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan. Jordan and other employees submitted an application to the league to completely reshape their team in the future. They hope to complete this work as soon as possible in 2014. Suggest they go back to the Charlotte Hornets like the New Orleans Pelicans did before. The league gave them the majority they were seeking in the council, and Jordan then announced a team campaign to further raise awareness. The event will be called Buz City and they changed the logo, colors and advertising along with a major name change. It’s a very odd full-blown rebranding deal, but the bottom line is that the Charlotte Hornets just happen to be a name that did well in the early days of the Pelicans organization, so they chose to go back to it for their new campaign. It sounds like the Pelicans are technically the closest NBA team, but they’re technically the Charlotte Hornets, so that’s not the case. The Charlotte Bobcats were the last team to join, being traded for the Hornets after the Hornets became the Pelicans.
Will there be another expansion team soon?
The short answer to this question is yes. In fact, it’s not just one team, it’s expected to be two teams. Rumors of the NBA expanding to hot cities like Las Vegas and Seattle have been swirling for a long time. NBA commissioner Adam Silver dismissed the possibility that the team will expand any time soon, but he did say that expansion is inevitable. Fast-forward a few months, and another report says there could be two expansion teams by 2024. Seattle and Las Vegas are the cities most likely to be involved. Unfortunately, these are all just rumors and reports, so there’s nothing official about what’s happening with the expansion. Fans in Seattle and Vegas certainly want to get a new NBA team as soon as possible. Seattle fans in particular clamored for another team after the NBA took over the Seattle SuperSonics and renamed them the Oklahoma City Thunder. Whether a potential Seattle team would ever be called the Sonics again is up for debate. Teams should be prepared to pay for the extension, though. It was reported more than a year ago that each team would need to pay $2.5 billion to complete the expansion. To sum it up, Adam Silver had this to say about the cities of Seattle and Las Vegas, “These are great markets. Also, as I said before, we’re in Seattle. Sorry, We’re no longer there. We have a WNBA team in a nearly brand new building in Seattle, and it’s doing really well there. And Las Vegas, where we’ll be playing summer league in July, has also proven itself to be a Great sports market.”
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