NBA expansion news finally crushes ridiculous Mavericks rumor from Luka Doncic trade

The NBA could be expanding for the first time in more than 20 years.

Insider Shams Charania reported that the league will vote at the March 24–25 Board of Governors meetings on the possibility of adding expansion teams, with Las Vegas and Seattle as the leading candidates.

NBA expansion could change the league’s landscape

Las Vegas and Seattle are the obvious choices, with the former being a burgeoning sports city and the latter having previously housed an NBA team for over 40 years.

For Dallas Mavericks fans, this may come as a relief: Las Vegas, long rumored as a potential destination following Miriam Adelson and Patrick Dumont’s 2023 majority-stake purchase, is now being considered for expansion, not a team move.

Although there was never a serious belief that the Mavericks would relocate to Las Vegas, the idea gained traction among fans and observers. The speculation only intensified after the ill-fated trade that sent superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and limited draft capital.

The rumor largely began after Adelson and Dumont purchased their majority stake in the Mavericks. Adelson’s late husband, Sheldon Adelson, was a billionaire businessman who bought the Sands casino in Las Vegas in 1988. He later developed The Venetian and expanded the Sands brand into a global resort and casino empire.

With Adelson’s purchase of the team and Dumont — who built his career with Las Vegas Sands Corp.— being named the Mavericks’ governor, some began to speculate about the franchise’s long-term future. The rumors only gained traction after Dumont floated the idea of developing a large-scale entertainment resort and casino complex around a new Mavericks arena in the Dallas area.

Mavericks fans can relax about a Vegas move

Yet the biggest obstacle was obvious: gambling is illegal in Texas. That means any plan to build a casino-centered entertainment complex would face significant legislative hurdles. In that context, a move to Las Vegas seemed like the easier path to making Dumont’s broader vision a reality.

Still, despite the speculation, Dumont shut down the rumors after the Luka Doncic trade, stating, “The Dallas Mavericks are not moving to Las Vegas.”

However, Dumont’s statement didn’t fully put the rumors to rest. The shock of the Doncic trade was so jarring that, for many fans, nothing seemed off the table…not even a move to Las Vegas. Trading the franchise’s fan favorite and cornerstone player sent the organization into turmoil, fueling concerns about declining ticket sales and a growing sense of uncertainty around the team’s future. That made a move out west feel more plausible.

Nonetheless, a little more than a year after the trade, the speculation may finally be coming to an end. Rather than relocating an existing franchise to one of the league’s proposed markets, the NBA could instead add two expansion teams as early as 2028. In other words, the Dallas Mavericks appear to be here to stay.