League President Adam Xiao Hua said that the NBA will seriously examine the issue of military expansion

NBA may finally take a critical step on the long road to expand its army.

League president Adam Xiao Hua said on Wednesday that the team owners have officially authorized the league to conduct more in-depth analysis and research, which is the first official move towards the addition of new teams.

There is no specific timetable yet, nor is it determined how much the expansion cost, when the new team will start participating, and it has not even decided whether it will actually expand. The

Alliance will not set up a new military expansion committee specifically; at present, this task will be mainly under the responsibility of the two existing committees, namely the "Financial Advisory Committee" and the "Audit and Strategic Committee".

"A lot of analysis is still needed, and everything is not yet concluded," said Xiao Hua. It is not surprising that

decided to examine the issue of expansion in a more in-depth manner, after all, there have been constant discussions about new teams in recent years. Cities like Las Vegas and Seattle — which have always been seen as popular candidates for the NBA’s decision to expand — will undoubtedly continue to actively strive to become the final selected cities. Xiao Hua himself had previously stated that he believed that the NBA would inevitably expand its army at some point.

"I think it's an important progress now, and we're starting to do in-depth analysis, which is something we're not ready to do before," said Xiao Hua. "But beyond that, this is actually just the first day of this in-depth analysis. As for the price and potential timing, it's too early to draw conclusions... It's really a very complex issue."

The next board meeting is expected to be held sometime in September. The expansion of the army has long been challenging, one of the reasons is that it means that existing team owners need to agree to sell some of their equity in this league with strong financial conditions.

"Every new team is added, the economic structure of the existing league will be diluted." Xiao Hua said.

A new round of media copyright contracts worth $76 billion will take effect this season, and the valuations of teams across the league have also soared. The two most championship-winning teams in NBA history - the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers are currently in the process of selling, with the combined valuation of the two teams reaching at least $16.1 billion. The Celtics are about to sell to private equity tycoon Bill Chisholm at a valuation of at least $6.1 billion, a record-breaking deal until the Bass family agreed to sell the Lakers to businessman Mark Walter (who is also the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers) for a valuation of $10 billion.

"There is no doubt that the transaction prices of these teams will have an impact on the economic analysis of the league," Xiao Hua said. "This may not necessarily make the expansion analysis more complicated, but it does reflect the value of the team."

"We must also consider another factor: how much value is the expansion itself? What does it mean for the dilution of existing equity? How much value can a new team bring to the league?"

Since 1988, the league has added seven new teams, but it has not expanded since 2004. Since then, although there have been several team names and relocations - the most famous one is the Seattle Supersonics relocated to Oklahoma City and renamed the Thunder in 2008 - the entire league has remained at the size of 30 teams over the past two decades.