{"id":21174,"date":"2025-07-19T09:44:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T09:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/21174\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T09:44:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T09:44:13","slug":"nba-commissioner-favors-keeping-trail-blazers-in-portland-investing-in-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/21174\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA commissioner favors keeping Trail Blazers in Portland, investing in arena"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NBA<\/p>\n

NBA commissioner Adam Silver announces the start of the first round of the NBA basketball draft, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in New York.<\/p>\n

Adam Hunger \/ AP<\/p>\n

As the NBA takes a closer look at expansion and franchise values continue to soar, Commissioner Adam Silver weighed in on the fate of the Portland Trail Blazers.<\/p>\n

Paul Allen\u2019s estate announced in May that it had begun the process of selling the Blazers<\/a>. On Tuesday night in Las Vegas, following an annual meeting of the league\u2019s 30 franchise leaders, Silver was asked about the Blazers\u2019 future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the league\u2019s preference that that team remain in Portland,\u201d Silver said in response to a question from Sean Highkin with the Portland-based Rose Garden Report<\/a> website. \u201cWe\u2019ve had great success in Portland over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silver\u2019s comments came during a half-hour press conference to discuss major issues facing the league. Silver said he was aware of potential ownership groups \u201cthat are actively engaged with the estate and have demonstrated interest in that team.\u201d <\/p>\n

Silver said a factor in the sale is that the \u201ccity of Portland likely needs a new arena,\u201d which he said would be part of the challenge for any new owner.<\/p>\n

The city of Portland owns the Moda Center, which is one of the older arenas in the league that has not undergone major renovations. The Blazers have a lease through 2030, with an option for an additional five-year extension. <\/p>\n

Elliott Kozuch, a spokesperson for the city, said in an email that the rejiggered lease agreement approved by the team and City Council last year sets \u201cthe stage for a major renovation of the nearly 30-year-old arena to create a state-of-the-art facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe City continues to collaborate with team leadership and looks forward to forging a strong partnership with new ownership to ensure that Oregon\u2019s favorite basketball team continues to thrive in Portland,\u201d Kozuch said.<\/p>\n

Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, died in 2018 at age 65 from complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Since then, his sister, Jody Allen, has served as chair of the Trail Blazers and the NFL\u2019s Seattle Seahawks and trustee of the Paul G. Allen Trust.<\/p>\n

More broadly, Silver indicated that the NBA may finally be one step closer on the long road to expansion.<\/p>\n

Saying owners have a \u201ccuriosity\u201d about the notion, Silver said that the league will now study the issue more formally as part of an in-depth analysis. The inquiry would be the first official move in a long process toward adding franchises<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no timetable for how long the process will take, nor have any decisions been made on details of potential expansion, such as what the expansion fee will be, when the new teams will start play \u2014 or even if the league will actually expand.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of analysis still needs to be done and nothing has been predetermined,\u201d Silver said after the end of the league\u2019s board of governors meeting.<\/p>\n

The league isn\u2019t creating a new committee to study expansion. The duties, for now, will fall primarily to a pair of existing groups, with the advisory finance committee leading and the audit and strategy committee also involved.<\/p>\n

The decision to take a harder look at expansion wasn\u2019t totally unexpected, since the notion of adding clubs has been a talking point for several years. Cities like Las Vegas and Seattle \u2014 long perceived to be the front-runners should the NBA decide to expand past its current 30-team footprint \u2014 will surely continue to push to be the eventual picks. And Silver himself has said previously that he expects expansion will happen at some point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there is a significant step now in that we are now engaging in this in-depth analysis, something we weren\u2019t prepared to do before,\u201d Silver said. \u201cBut beyond that, it\u2019s really Day 1 of that in-depth analysis. And so, in terms of price, potential timing, it\u2019s too early to say. <\/p>\n

\u201dIt is truly a complicated issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next board of governors meeting will likely take place in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA commissioner Adam Silver announces the start of the first round of the NBA basketball draft, Wednesday, June…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99,19209],"class_list":["post-21174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-trail-blazers-portland-basketball-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}