The NBA may be in an expansion mode.
Is Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in the mix for a National Basketball Association expansion franchise? Commissioner Adam Silver said yes along with Seattle and Las Vegas. It seems hard to believe that Vancouver is in the mix with the Canadian dollar being worth only 72 cents US. Addition there is the tariff-trade war taking place between the US and Canada. As the Canadian dollar was about to hit rock bottom in the mid-1990s, Vancouver businessman Arthur Griffiths, who owned the National Hockey League’s Canucks franchise, decided to build an arena for his hockey team and wanted a basketball team in the building to fill up dates. The commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, sold Griffiths an expansion team, with the understanding that while Vancouver wasn’t a traditional basketball hub, it was becoming the home of many immigrants from Hong Kong who were leaving the island prior to the transfer of Hong Kong’s sovereignty from Britain to China on July 1st, 1997. The NBA had identified Hong Kong as a major basketball hotbed. With Hong Kong residents flooding nearby Richmond, it seemed that Vancouver would be a wildly successful franchise.
Griffiths soon began to feel the financial pressure of having to foot the cost of the arena and the $100 million American expansion fee, and could not handle the debt service payments. The 1998–99 NBA lockout of the players seemed to be the death knell for the franchise, as corporate support disappeared. By 2001, new owner Michael Heisley moved his team to Memphis. It was not a good move for Heisley, who found out in a hurry that small market Memphis might not have the financial wherewithal to support the franchise. He sold the team. Seattle and Las Vegas are the favorites to get an NBA expansion franchise if the NBA decides to add teams.
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Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.comarthur griffiths
