Brown: Louisville, once positioned nicely in NBA expansion talks, further than ever from pros

INDIANAPOLIS — Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell concluded an interview session during NBA All-Star weekend and then greeted media members who covered him when he played at Louisville.

"I forgot Louisville was so close," Mitchell quipped.

And yet, it’s never been further from the NBA.

There was a time when it seemed Louisville had the inside track to being a favored city for future NBA expansion.

"To be quite honest, I think Louisville’s time might have passed," said Dan Issel, who joined NBA2Lou as president in 2018.

When Issel was a part of the group, he said he was at speaking engagements “every other day.” Back then, it looked like there was a window for expansion.

“We had a lot of momentum,” Issel said. “When you saw a list of cities the NBA may consider, Louisville was always third or fourth or fifth and so we thought, at that time, there was an opportunity.”

The pandemic helped to squash the opportunity and expansion became an afterthought.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver, as recently as last week, has said the league won’t have serious expansion talks until after its next media rights deal is negotiated. The NBA has one year left on its current $24 billion, nine-year deal.

When those talks resume, Louisville won’t be near the top of the list of cities considered.

The KFC Yum! Center, which opened in 2010, is still a great venue, but with so many advances in the past decade, it’s no longer the hot, new NBA-ready arena that would be an obvious landing spot.

It was really never a shoe-in.

One study commissioned in 2012 stated the arena would need upgrades totaling more than $10 million. Those upgrades included adding more private suites to the 75 the Yum! center has currently. By comparison, Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles has 172.

Another feasibility study in 2013 cited the city's "lack of corporate depth," and concluded Louisville could not support a franchise.

Issel, who played professionally for the Kentucky Colonels in the ABA before joining the Denver Nuggets in the NBA, pushed back on that notion. The Hall of Famer and former Kentucky All-American said he saw the numbers from Amazon’s economic study when they considered Louisville for expansion.

“I have no doubt, no doubt, Louisville and Kentucky could support an NBA team,” Issel said.

Even if the city and state could convince the league of it, much has changed since Louisville was positioned to try and lure the Hornets as they left Charlotte for New Orleans at the beginning of the century.

Las Vegas is now the hot spot with the former Oakland Raiders moving there and Silver confirming that the city is "definitely" among those under consideration for expansion franchises.

Former NBA commissioner David Stern never wanted the league to leave Seattle when the SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City. Stern essentially promised when Seattle had the right arena, the league would make sure it had priority during the next expansion.

"Las Vegas, which wasn't even mentioned, at that time, has gone to the top," Issel said. "You’ll see cities mentioned like Seattle and Montreal and Nashville and so I'm not real optimistic about Louisville's chances."

That’s not to say it could never happen with the way the game is growing internationally and the league potentially growing to match it.

Basketball could one day take over as the nation’s top sport. It’s not a stretch to believe the threat of serious injuries could erode football’s grip on the national conscious the same way baseball’s hold loosened.

But this chance for Louisville looks no more, leaving Issel and others who were hopeful, reflecting back on the Kentucky Colonels when owner John Y. Brown took $3 million to fold the franchise when the NBA was deciding which ABA teams it would add to the league.

"John Y. Brown made made the right financial choice at that time," Issel said. "I'm guessing that if he thought the Colonels would be worth $3 billion dollars today, he probably wouldn't have dispersed it."

But he did. And with it, Louisville's dream of the NBA will continue to be put on hold.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: NBA expansion: Louisville, KFC Yum! Center no longer positioned nicely