Seattle back from the dead, Vegas buys their way in like always

Seattle has been yearning for a team since its franchise was ripped away and moved to Oklahoma. Lebron James has been publicly talking about owning a team in Las Vegas for the last decade, and it seems like both parties are getting their wish. Adam Silver, the NBA Commissioner, has made a plan for the teams to be operational by the 2028/29 season. These projects are going to be very expensive; most estimates place the cost of just buying into the NBA in the 7-10 billion dollar range. That doesn’t include building an arena, hiring staff, or other things needed to run a functioning business.
Every team needs a stadium or arena to play in. The latest NBA team to construct a new arena was the Golden State Warriors in 2019. That project cost them 1.4 billion dollars to complete. Also, training complexes and offices are needed as well; the Houston Rockets just made a new facility for about 70 million dollars.
Along with everything they’re spending on the NBA team, they will have to do the same for their G League affiliate. The G-League is kinda like junior varsity. The teams are made up of younger players who can move up to the NBA if a player is playing well or there are injuries to the NBA team. Lastly, and most importantly, they need to pay their players and coaches. The player salary cap for players is 154 million dollars, and coach salaries vary from team to team, but most coaching staff contracts add up to 20-25 million dollars per team.
Also, they have a lot of logistical problems that still haven’t been figured out. Will the expansion draft rules change? Which teams are going to switch conferences to the East? What are the other teams doing in preparation for when new teams are added? Rookie draft going to work?
What do the teams need to do to be ready by 2028? Since they’re adding 2 teams in the West, they’ll have to move a team to the Eastern Conference. As of now. The NBA is going to make either the Minnesota Timberwolves or the Memphis Grizzlies play in the Eastern Conference. Changing conferences likely would be simple, but how would the NBA solve the divisions? NBA divisions are almost obsolete in the modern league, so they may just stop using them.
What about what the other teams might do to prepare for the new arrivals? When a new team is added to the NBA, the league hosts an expansion draft. The rules for the expansion draft are that all teams get to “protect” 8 players. The rest of their roster gets put into a list that the expansion teams can pick from. Only 1 player can be drafted per team. The most any team will lose is 1 player. There hasn’t been an expansion draft in 20 years. Limiting the 2 new teams to getting end-of-rotation players will start both franchises off in a rough spot.
Next, the two expansion teams will get a lottery pick in the 2028 rookie draft. The commissioner hasn’t said what pick they’ll get, but it’s likely it will be around the 9th or 10th picks. The Commissioner could opt to give each team a top 5 pick to help them out, but they would have to convince the already established teams to give up their valuable draft position.