Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
Las Vegas is the king of the neutral sports site.
Now, the logical next question is when will Las Vegas be awarded an NBA franchise?
After hosting a new NBA in-season tournament event, Las Vegas could only have impressed NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and basketball fans with an announced sellout of 19,021 at T-Mobile Arena Saturday when the Los Angeles Lakers enjoyed a win over an upstart Indiana Pacers squad to win the Association’s tournament NBA Cup.
LVSportsBiz.com asked Lakers star LeBron James after the win about his assessment of the Las Vegas market to host an NBA team.
James said nothing has changed in his mind about Las Vegas being a legitimate NBA city because he said the market has showed it can host NFL, NHL, WNBA teams along with the Las Vegas Grand Prix and an MLB team slated to open a new stadium on the Strip in 2028.
“The fans are amazing here,” James told the media after the LVSportsBiz.com question.
LVSportsBiz.com also asked Lakers coach Darvin Ham about Las Vegas as an NBA city and he said the market is built to host an NBA franchise.
“It has built-in electricity and energy. It’s built for what we witnessed tonight. It’s definitely an NBA city,” Ham said at his postgame presser.
The in-season tourney title means each Lakers player won $500,000.
Silver praised Las Vegas for hosting the NBA’s inaugural in-season tournament, which is common in soccer leagues in Europe.
For the record, the NBA is not discussing expansion or Las Vegas as a potential new market until it locks up a new media deal.
The Lakers enjoyed a home court feel at T-Mobile Arena for their wins over the New Orleans Pelicans Thursday and the Indiana Pacers Saturday.
Tim Leiweke’s Oak View Group is planning an NBA arena as part of a $10 billion hotel-casino project at Las Vegas Boulevard and Blue Diamond Road.
And Vegas Golden Knights majority owner Bill Foley hinted that he thought NBA as coming to Las Vegas and that T-Mobile Arena could be used as a suitable NBA venue while a possible Oak View arena is built two miles to the south of the Golden Knights’ home arena.
The Lakers celebrated the NBA Cup win with a party in a designated “party room” in the arena because the venue did not want a celebration in a regular locker room because the Golden Knights are playing in less than 24 hours here in the arena against the San Jose Sharks.
Here’s Silver’s chat before the game: