Many people continue to call for the NBA to expand, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver believes expansion is ultimately ā€œinevitable.ā€ However, he also admittedĀ that expansion wasn't being actively considered by the league even before the pandemic, and there's no timetable for serious conversations on the matter to occur.

For Silver, the main goal is to resume the usual league operations as soon as possible in order to cut down the financial losses that they have incurred over the past year:

ā€œIt was not under active consideration before the pandemic,ā€ Silver said via NBA.com. ā€œCertainly, during the pandemic as Iā€™ve mentioned, weā€™ve dusted off some of the plans that we previously looked at for potential expansion. But it remains on the backburner and it would not be appropriate to expand right now, given where our focus is on trying to work through this season. All our attention is on getting the business back to being fully operable as quickly as possible.ā€

The NBA has already attempted to get back to its feet this season by returning to the traditional format of having home and away games instead of hosting an isolated bubble, which is how the 2019-20 campaign concluded after a lengthy postponement due to COVID-19. More and more teams are welcoming back their fans in arenas as of late, albeit in a limited capacity.

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Looking from a bigger perspective, it might take a year or two for the league to fully recover from the losses of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the situation, the league certainly took a step in the right direction from a business standpoint with its decision to resume operations for the 2020-21 season.

At the end of the day, it can't be denied that a potential league expansion would definitely bring more fans, added excitement, and increased viewership to the league. There have been calls for a team to return to Seattle for a long time, with Las Vegas representing another intriguing option.

However, as per Silver's statements, the public will have to wait a little longer before they can get to see more NBA teams in action.