The NBA took their game to London on Thursday where the Milwaukee Bucks hammered the New York Knicks. When commissioner Adam Silver spoke to the media, he brought up something that should alarm fans and players in the league. Silver said that while the NFL is closer to expansion in London, he would want to see four NBA franchises in Europe and that is the league’s “manifest destiny” to expand. [lead image via Getty Sports / Tom Dulat]
This is obviously very interesting especially if the travel costs are considered for those four teams if they ever happen. A trip from Lisbon, Portugal to Portland for a game isn’t exactly a hop, skip or jump. There is the problem of having schedules where more travel would be needed from every team and the whole game time situation for fans in the United States seeing a game in London.
Silver isn’t going to want his teams playing a series of 1 p.m. local time games during the work week where fans can’t watch. There is obviously plenty of work to do before something like this happens and Silver is laying the groundwork only at this time but it looks like something that is going to happen sooner than later. Hopefully fans, players and the people in Europe are ready for all this to occur.
