NBA Expansion Should Come With a Long-Overdue Divisional Reset

Sam Lim
3 days ago
7 min read

NBA Expansion Could Be the Perfect Time to Kill Off Divisions for Good

For years, NBA expansion has lived in the realm of rumor, wishful thinking, and commissioner-speak. Now, it finally feels real.

According to reports, the league is moving closer to adding new franchises for the first time since the Charlotte Bobcats entered the NBA in 2004. If everything goes to plan, the board of governors is expected to vote on expansion with Las Vegas and Seattle as the leading destinations, with a potential launch targeted for the 2028-29 season.

That would be a huge moment for the league. Seattle getting basketball back would feel long overdue, while Las Vegas continues its rapid rise as one of America’s fastest-growing major sports markets.

But once the celebration fades, the NBA will face an unavoidable reality: realignment is coming.

And if the league is already going to redraw the map, it should do more than just shuffle one team from West to East.

It should finally ask the obvious question:

Do NBA divisions still serve any real purpose?

NBA Expansion Means Realignment Is Inevitable

If the NBA grows to 32 teams, the conferences can’t remain as they are now without adjustment.

With two new teams expected in the Western half of the map, one current Western Conference team would almost certainly have to move East to keep things balanced. The most logical candidate is Memphis, though Minnesota also enters the conversation depending on how the league wants to structure future travel and rivalries.

That’s where the usual instinct kicks in: create fresh divisions, rebalance the league, and try to make the map look neat on paper.

The problem?

It almost never actually looks neat.

Trying to force 32 teams into eight divisions of four quickly becomes an exercise in chaos. Every “solution” creates a new weirdness. Every tidy layout comes with at least one head-scratching geographic contradiction.

At some point, the answer stops being “find better divisions” and starts becoming:

Maybe divisions themselves are the problem.

A Theoretical 32-Team Setup — And Why It Still Feels Weird

If the NBA adds Seattle and Las Vegas, and then shifts Memphis to the East, a hypothetical eight-division structure might look something like this:

Example 32-Team Alignment (Theoretical)

Eastern Conference

Division	Teams
Division A	Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, Miami Heat, Orlando Magic
Division B	Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, Toronto Raptors, Washington Wizards
Division C	Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets, New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers
Division D	Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, Memphis Grizzlies, Milwaukee Bucks

Western Conference

Division	Teams
Division A	Golden State Warriors, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings, Seattle franchise
Division B	LA Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, Las Vegas franchise, Phoenix Suns
Division C	Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder, Utah Jazz
Division D	Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets, New Orleans Pelicans, San Antonio Spurs

On paper, that seems reasonable enough.

But the moment you stare at it for longer than 30 seconds, the cracks start showing.

That’s the issue with NBA divisions in a nutshell. They can be rearranged endlessly, but they still end up feeling forced, clunky, and weirdly disconnected from actual geography.

NBA Divisions Have Always Been Geographically Messy

Let’s be honest: the NBA’s divisional map has never been a model of logic.

Some clusters make sense. The California teams belong together. Texas being grouped together works. The Florida teams pairing up is easy enough. New York and Brooklyn being in the same neighborhood is obvious.

But once you move past the obvious, things get messy fast.

The Phoenix Suns being in the Pacific Division while Portland is somehow grouped with teams far from the coast tells you a lot about how loose these labels really are. The Minnesota Timberwolves being in the Northwest Division has long felt like a basketball geography meme. And when Seattle returns, it will be even stranger if the league doesn’t rethink everything.

Then there’s Oklahoma City, which somehow lives in the Northwest despite not being especially north or west in any meaningful NBA sense.

The Detroit Pistons are geographically closer to Toronto than some of their supposed divisional peers. Dallas is much more naturally connected to Oklahoma City than to some teams it’s been grouped with historically. And if you really want to break your brain, look at how far east some current Western Conference teams actually are.

In short:

Why the current divisional map feels broken

Problem	Why It Matters
Labels don’t match reality	“Northwest” and “Pacific” often feel misleading
Travel logic is inconsistent	Some divisional rivals are oddly far apart
Forced grouping	Teams are placed together because they have to be, not because it makes sense
Expansion makes it worse	Adding Seattle and Vegas exposes more structural flaws

The NBA can keep pretending these groupings are intuitive, but fans can see the absurdity.

The Bigger Problem: Divisions Barely Matter Anymore

This is the part that really kills the argument for keeping them.

Even if NBA divisions were perfectly arranged — and they’re not — what exactly do they do?

The answer in 2026 is: not much.

Divisions still show up in two main areas:

Regular-season scheduling
Playoff tiebreak procedures

That’s basically it.

And neither one is strong enough to justify keeping an outdated structure alive.

Scheduling Doesn’t Need Divisions

The NBA schedule is already complicated, but divisions are not what makes it work.

Right now, teams don’t even play all conference opponents equally. Some teams face certain conference rivals four times, while others only meet three times. That imbalance has been accepted for years, and it’s driven more by scheduling formulas than by meaningful divisional logic.

With 32 teams, the NBA could absolutely build a new model without divisions.

For example, the league could create a structure where teams play:

A set number of conference opponents three times
Another set four times
Every opposite-conference team at least twice (home and away)

Would it be complicated?

Sure.

But it’s already complicated.

And frankly, the NBA’s scheduling department is more than capable of handling that math without needing a “division” label as a crutch.

Why scheduling can survive without divisions

Current Reality	What It Means
Teams already don’t play conference opponents equally	The schedule is already flexible
Cross-conference games are already standardized	Easy to preserve in a new format
Divisions are not the real engine of scheduling	Formulas matter more than labels
Expansion forces a redesign anyway	Best time to simplify the system

If the league is going to rebuild the schedule from the ground up after expansion, it might as well do it cleanly.

Divisions Have Already Lost Most of Their Playoff Importance

Once upon a time, winning your division really mattered.

Before the 2015-16 season, a division champion could secure a top-four playoff seed even if another non-division winner had a better record. That gave divisions real weight.

But the NBA already backed away from that.

Today, head-to-head record takes priority over division status in major tiebreak situations. Division standing still exists deeper in the tiebreak hierarchy, but its impact has been watered down significantly.

That tells you everything you need to know.

The league itself has already admitted divisions shouldn’t override more meaningful indicators like actual wins and direct results.

So why keep them hanging around as a relic?

Why division-based tiebreakers feel outdated

Old System	Current Reality
Division winners had major playoff power	That advantage has been reduced
Divisions shaped seeding narratives	Now they’re mostly secondary
Tiebreak impact was significant	Now it’s marginal in most cases
Fans cared more	Most fans barely notice division implications now

If the NBA removed divisions from tiebreak logic entirely, very little would actually change.

And that’s the point.

NBA Rivalries Don’t Need Divisions to Thrive

One of the oldest arguments for divisions is that they help build rivalries.

In theory, sure.

In practice? Not really.

Some of the NBA’s best rivalries today have little or nothing to do with divisional alignment.

The Lakers vs Nuggets has become must-watch basketball in recent seasons because of playoff history, superstar tension, and high-stakes moments — not because of some divisional structure.

The same goes for plenty of modern rivalries across the league. Fans care about:

playoff rematches
superstar matchups
bad blood
market size
postseason history
social media chaos

They do not care because two teams share a division label.

What really creates NBA rivalries today

Playoff battles
Star power
Repeat postseason meetings
Physical or emotional drama
Franchise history
Fanbase culture clashes

Divisions are not driving the league’s best storylines anymore.

The games themselves are.

Why the NBA Should Scrap Divisions Entirely After Expansion

If the NBA is truly entering a new era with Seattle and Las Vegas, it should be bold enough to modernize the structure too.

Keeping divisions around just because they’ve always existed is not a real argument. They’re a leftover from an older version of the league, one that no longer reflects how the NBA is scheduled, consumed, or discussed.

Why divisions should go

Reason	Why It Makes Sense
They’re outdated	The league has already reduced their importance
Geography is messy	The map often feels irrational
Travel can be optimized better	Divisions can force awkward repeat matchups
Scheduling can be rebuilt without them	Expansion already requires a redesign
Rivalries don’t depend on them	Modern NBA drama is driven by stars and playoffs
Simplicity matters	Less clutter, cleaner structure, fewer weird exceptions

Removing divisions would not destroy the NBA.

If anything, it would make the league easier to understand, easier to explain, and easier to optimize.

That’s a rare win-win.

Could the NBA Eventually Rethink Conferences Too?

Now we’re getting spicy.

If divisions are outdated, are conferences still sacred?

That’s a much bigger debate, and probably not one the NBA is ready to fully tackle yet. But expansion will inevitably reopen those conversations, especially if the league keeps growing in the future.

If the NBA eventually pushes beyond 32 teams, or if travel data and competitive balance become even bigger priorities, the idea of rethinking conferences could stop sounding radical and start sounding practical.

For now, though, one step at a time.

Kill the divisions first.

Then we can start the real chaos.