Morning Blazer fans! So I got to work this morning and a coworker of mine comes up to me and says: "did you hear?? Vegas is looking for a basketball team and the Blazers are one of the teams looking to sell to them" I guess I should Google it, but this was the first place I came to see if he was right... Is he? Gosh I hope not.
Oh jeez. Here we go again. If you really think the Trail Blazers are going to leave Portland, your paranoid and simply not paying attention.
This is like me starting an OT Thread saying "United States to dissolve into 50 different countries because Texas wants to be a country".
There are a lot of people and times where people post things like this just to stir the pot. A lot more trying to stir the pot than trying to be serious. Given your low post count and the message, you came across as a troll. If not then don't worry about it, but do understand how it looks.
If @ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsTheHCP's kids suddenly start going to Vegas schools then we'll know it's true.
Mine was a great analogy for the situation. Basically, if one guy wants to buy the team to move it to Vegas, theres 49 other things that need to happen, and even then, it may not be enough. Theres so many reasons why the team wouldnt get moved that Im not worried, and you shouldnt be either.
Tell your coworker that the NBA is not going to allow the Blazers to leave the Pacific NW market. We are a very successful franchise here. Our situation is very different from Seattle's. We have a well maintained arena and a fan base that supports the team.
If the NHL hadn't moved into LV then this prospect would scare me a lot more. But with the Golden Knjghts starting there and the Raiders moving in soon.... That's a hell of a lot of competition to move away from a single major franchise city.
Either your buddy is just speculating or if he got this off a radio jock show then the radio guy is fabricating it based on Vegas wants a team (NBA hasn't committed to Vegas as far as I know) and the Blazers may be for sale at some time. Portland has a locked in lease till 2023 so I don't see anything happening in the near future and a new owner would be a fool to move the Blazers out of the Portland market (I doubt the NBA would approve it as they want a presence in the NW.
Here is an interesting rumor/speculation from this weekend and random radio guys talking... Lebron is very unhappy on the Lakers. The team sucks, he pretty much wants everyone gone, and everyone knows this so they ain't playing real hard. Lebron is realizing that he's not going to compete for a championship on the Lakers. Now Lebron is beginning to focus on the next part of his career, eventually being a NBA owner like Jordan. He has a net worth of over a billion. (All of this was from the radio dudes. This next part is pure guessing by me.) Lebron retires and buys the Blazers.
The radio dudes are wrong. LeBron's net worth is less than a billion. More like the $700-800 M range.
I think it was 680 million net worth and going take more LeBron money to buy a franchise. Plus there more teams in the NBA is not financially stable to move before the NBA move a team that actually financial stable. Yes Las Vegas would be looking for a NBA team but it won't be the Blazers.
Got it, thanks for the responses, I do appreciate it. I generally don't post anything on here, but I do read/check up on it daily. A lot of good insights and updates on here. After rereading my OP I do see how it could be viewed as a troll. My buddy just said it so matter of factly and he is not one to spout crap for the heck of it that I knee jerked my post. Y'all rock and go blazers!
Where did he hear it? I would venture a safe bet that most of the people who think the team is moving really don't have a full grasp on the things that lead to a team moving. The team is healthy (financially speaking) The fan base is strong (in spite of being a middle of the pack franchise for the better part of 20 years now) The arena is well maintained and sufficient The team owns the arena they play in (barring building a new arena in a new town, a new owner moving the team to another city would mean they are renters in the arena they play in) The league knows that moving a 3rd team from this region (Sonics and Grizzlies before) would look really bad for their PR The league also knows that moving one of it's healthier franchises, with all of the above being true, could open a bag of worms they don't want to deal with. In that, what would keep an owner of another small market team from then moving? "Hell, you let Portland move, why won't you let New Orleans move? Or Memphis?" The league fought really hard to keep the Kings in Sacramento, why wouldn't they do that in Portland? Arguably, Portland is a better market (larger city, larger market, larger metro population) and isn't 82 miles from another NBA franchise. The Kings have to compete with the Giants, Warriors, 49ers, Athletics and (at least as of right now) the Raiders. And if you go within 120 miles, they have to compete with the Sharks too. Portland has to compete with absolutely zero other pro sports teams within 120 miles. If you go based on Las Vegas, it has to compete with 2 pro teams in it's city, and within 35o miles it has to compete with the Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, Padres, Chargers, Rams, LA Kings, Mighty Ducks, Angels, Suns, Diamond Backs, Coyotes and Arizona Cardinals. If you expand that to 550 miles (Las Vegas to Oakland area), you need to include the Warriors, Giants, 49ers, Sharks and Athletics. That's 18 professional teams within 550 miles (I'm not including MSL teams). Yes the population is bigger down there (I'm not sure if it's 18 times the population), but that's an awful lot of teams to compete with. Whereas with Portland, within the same 550 miles, there are the Mariners, Seahawks, Cannucks aaaaaaand that's it. 4 teams if you count the future NHL team in Seattle. The insane cost of moving the team. The team probably could sell for about 2 billion. So to pay that and then just move the team? That's a LOT of money to spend just to move a team. And on top of that, you have the fact they own the arena that would sit mostly empty? That's just dumb finances.
If we lose Lillard and go back to lottery rebuild mode, it could be a possibility if fan support falls through the floor.