It's Finally Happening: The NBA Just Opened the Door to Bringing the Sonics Home
The wait is over. Well, sort of. On Wednesday, the NBA's Board of Governors officially authorized the league to explore expansion to Seattle and Las Vegas, which means we could actually be getting NBA basketball back in the Emerald City. Adding two franchises would bring the NBA to 32 teams total, and yeah, that includes potentially bringing back the SuperSonics after 18 years in exile.
If you've been waiting since the 2008-09 season for this moment, when the Sonics packed up and became the Thunder in Oklahoma City after 41 seasons here, today's news hits different. For Seattle fans, losing the Sonics felt like when the Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles or when the Browns relocated to Baltimore and became the Ravens. It was a wound that never really healed.
Las Vegas Has Been Waiting Longer Than You Think
If Seattle gets a team, Las Vegas would too. But here's the thing: Vegas has been flirting with the NBA since 2007, when the league hosted the All-Star Game in February and officially established its NBA Summer League later that year. Talk about a long courtship. What makes it wild is that if the NBA finally puts a franchise in Vegas, it'll arrive after the NFL, WNBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball already set up shop there. The NBA would be the last major men's sports league to show up to that party.
How We Got Here: A League Born in Chaos
Here's where it gets interesting. The NBA didn't start as some elite organization. Back in June 1946, arena owners across the East were basically looking for ways to fill their buildings on nights when they weren't hosting hockey, college basketball, boxing, wrestling, track meets, concerts, or even traveling ice shows. So they created the Basketball Association of America, a league designed as filler.
Meanwhile, out in the Midwest, the National Basketball League had already been running for over a decade and had better players. Three seasons of contentious competition followed, complete with player raids and teams being poached. In 1949, the BAA and NBL merged to form the NBA with 17 teams spread across three divisions. The league was a logistical nightmare. Teams ranged from Boston in the East to Denver in the West, with franchises in random spots like Waterloo, Iowa, Moline, Illinois, Fort Wayne, Anderson, and Sheboygan. Travel before reliable airline routes? Brutal. One night a team plays in front of nearly 18,000 fans at Madison Square Garden. Days later, they're in a high school gym or the Sheboygan Municipal Auditorium. The league was already behind other sports in popularity, and the ugly, slow play wasn't helping. Six franchises folded immediately after that first season, and the league kept shedding teams.
The SuperSonics are coming home. We just have to wait for the NBA to make it official.
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This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.