NBA expansion plans will create a brutal reality that long-time Timberwolves fans know

On Wednesday, the NBA board of governors approved a vote to explore bids for new franchises in Seattle and Las Vegas. Nothing is imminent as the NBA is targeting the addition of these teams for the 2028-2029 season.

Overall, this is good news for NBA fans -- Seattle has deserved a team after tragically losing their franchise in 2008, and an expansion draft creates a ton of excitement. And for Minnesota Timberwolves fans, it could mean switching conferences. 

History shows us these new teams will struggle early

However, expansion isn't all sunshine and rainbows. In fact, history (and simply logic) tells us that these two new teams will struggle for the first few years of their existence. The Timberwolves were added to the NBA in the 1989-90 season and didn't make the playoffs until the 1996-97 season. During this period of turmoil, the franchise nearly moved to New Orleans.

As such, long-time Wolves fans are well aware of how expansion teams tend to struggle during their first few seasons in the league. Frankly, it took the Timberwolves getting Kevin Garnett for the franchise to truly have any sort of hope. 

Beyond the Wolves, the seven most recent expansion teams all took at least four seasons to make their first playoff appearances. Making it in their fourth season, the Miami Heat were the quickest team to earn a spot in the playoffs, but they won just 38 games in that season. The Vancouver/Memphis Grizzlies made their first playoff appearance in 2003-04 after being added to the league in 1995-96.

In past expansion drafts, teams have been allowed to protect eight players, and the new team(s) can pick from the remaining unprotected players while not taking two players from one team. Thus, you are picking from a pool of undesirable players.

Sure, you'll get a high pick in the actual draft, but it's incredibly hard to build a competitive team from the get-go. 

You may argue that the NBA could change the number of players teams are allowed to protect. However, I don't think teams would approve of this change, and frankly, it's not fair since teams can't protect upcoming free agents to begin with.

Is expansion really in the NBA's best interest?

The reality is that these teams will likely struggle during their first several years in the league and perhaps even longer. 

With this in mind, it's worth pondering if expansion is truly in the NBA's best interest. To be clear, Seattle absolutely deserves a franchise and will stay loyal to a bad team for the initial few years. Nevertheless, with how rampant tanking is, adding two more bad teams could easily backfire.

Furthermore, Las Vegas is mainly a tourist-based city, and I wonder if it could support a team that is going to struggle early on. In any event, fans of these new teams will have to set their initial expectations low, and general fans will have to embrace having two more bad teams.