There were talks during the pandemic that the NBA would be looking towards expansion soon, due to the money lost from not having fans in arenas.The two rumored cities that are most likely to be added to the league are Seattle, which is almost a guarantee and Las Vegas. WIth those additions the NBA would join the NFL and NHL as 32 team major leagues. 

With new additions, there will be some realignment for the league. The most likely scenario would be to move from six divisions of five teams in two conferences to mimic the NHL, which has four divisions of eight teams with two conferences. Here’s a realistic look at the potential realigned conferences’ divisions.

Realignment

Schedule

I even came up with a mock scheduling format for the new alignment of teams and divisions.

Schedule would still be 82 games and here is how it would break down in detail:

Teams  would play everyone in their division 4 times = 28 games

Teams would play every team in the opposite conference twice= 32 games

Teams would play six teams in the other interconference division three times and the other two teams twice which would rotate from year to year = 22 games

Team Names

We all know what the Seattle team name will be once they’re awarded with NBA membership (SuperSonics) but what would the Las Vegas team name be?

Las Vegas Rattlers (Paying homage to the minor league team they had once before)

Las Vegas Stars ( Vegas brings the stars out at every major event)

Las Vegas Lions ( MGM need i say more) 

Las Vegas Venom ( a great concept proposed by Ryan Melis)

Las Vegas Sharks ( you know how scary a loan shark is?)

The NBA won’t expand until after the new CBA deal is completed, which should be done after the 2024 season. The good thing is both cities already have NBA ready stadiums to make the process move as fast as possible. Also expect LeBron to get an ownership group together to purchase the Las Vegas team. I don’t know who would try to get the Seattle team, maybe Jeff Bezos wants a franchise down the street from Amazon headquarters.