Silver: NBA 'digesting' Celtics sale before expansion talk - ESPN

NEW YORK — NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday that the league will consider the topic of expansion more fully once the recently agreed upon sale of the Boston Celtics is completed.

«We're still in the process of digesting the Celtic transaction,» Silver said after the league's annual spring meeting of its Board of Governors in midtown Manhattan. «There's no question that a major transaction like that becomes relevant to expansion. That deal has just been presented to us, so we're still analyzing it, and my sense is once we've been through that process that we'll turn to it in a more serious way.»

Previously, Silver said publicly that both the collective bargaining agreement, which was agreed upon two years ago, and the league's new national television contract, which was agreed to last year, had to be completed in order for the expansion to move forward. At the last Board of Governors meeting in September, Silver said that the «plan was to address this season.»

In recent months, sources have told ESPN that the sale of the Celtics — which the team announced would be sold to a group led by billionaire William Chisholm last week for a North American record of $6.1 billion — would also be a precursor to potential expansion, as it would set a marker for how much those teams could generate in expansion fees. In addition to continuing to vet the Celtics sale, Silver said the league must now consider the ongoing uncertainty around regional sports networks and the loss of revenue that comes with it — an issue it had not addressed previously.

The widespread belief among sources is that if the league does eventually expand, it would do so by two teams — with Las Vegas and Seattle the strong favorites to land teams.

Later in