There’s a division with five teams that are actually located nearby the Pacific Ocean, a division with five teams located in states across the Southern United States, and a division with five teams throughout three different subregions of the Midwest (i.e., the Mountain West, the Upper Midwest, & the Mid-South).

After that, the NBA might be open to consider alternatives. I think option 2 has no chance, the others are good with the first alternative getting my current vote. Phoenix sounds like South to me, not like Midwest.

I’m sure Norsktroll is right about Stern not wanting to separate LA and Phoenix until Shaq retires at the end of next season… or is it this season? If Stern drags his heels after that, there can be only one reason: he thinks the Sonics will rise from the ashes. If they do, maybe they should call themselves the Seattle Phoenix instead. Ha ha, that would be funny when they play the Suns. Better idea: OK moves to Seattle and Minnie moves to Boise.

As in, is Seattle going to replace their departed team Browns-stylee,
and if so, will it be soon? (If so, realignment should wait for that.)
And, where will their “new” team come from?

You are right I never realized that our divison spans three different time zones. Each of the other divisons in the western conference are concentrated in one time zone. With the exception with Arizona for part of the year.

in any alternate scenario is phoenix. they would lobby hard against all of these.

With the fact that we call anything east of Colorado ‘Western’.

You might as well considering teams flipping conferences.

If baseball could move teams from the AL to NL (Milwaukee), and Football from AFC to NFC, then basketball teams could (potentially) switch conferences.

Those maps are very helpful to understand the alternatives. And darn straight I don’t see how the NBA can avoid conference switcheroos.

Hopefully in a few years Stern will be gone and the new commish can get to work on this. Heck I’d like to get started tomorrow.

and align them like this…portland,utah, golden state, sac, l.a. (take your pick)……la (the other one),pheonix and the stateoftexas(s.a, houston, dallas)…..minni denver memphis n.orleans, n the hillbillies.

(forgive me if anyone already did it like that, I didn’t really read all the comments, but I’m gonna now :))

I actually have a similar experiment sitting on my desk right now. Literally almost the same as yours. I was very close to submitting it a couple times 2 weeks ago, but your presentation puts it together better than I would have.

I favor the 1st option, but the problem you run into is there’s no perfect option. Maybe that’s why I never submitted it. It’s clear we kind of get the shaft with the division we’re in right now, so a change would definitely help us. Puting all of the Pacific coast teams together is an obvious must. There was once a time when the Pacific Division was: Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, Golden State, LA. If Seatle were still around we would have a problem of 6 teams on the coast, but with them gone, the solution is obvious.

I don’t remember exactly when things got changed, or why, but what we have now is far from ideal. WHO IS OUR DIVISION RIVAL? CAN WE REALLY HAVE A RIVALRY WITH TEAMS SO FAR AWAY?

I kept on trying to keep Oklahoma together with the Texas teams, but doing so makes other areas messy.

Yep, option 1 makes the most sense. Can we get this done soon?

the lonely west is just that

Good post though. I WAS ONLY ABLE TO WASTE 30 SECONDS HERE THOUGH. is it game time yet?