If the Trail Blazers Want a New Arena, They'll Get One
The public negotiation has begun.
Two weeks ago, when I asked Adam Silver at his Board of Governors press conference in Las Vegas about the impending Trail Blazers sale and the team's future in Portland, all I was looking for was the commissioner of the NBA to say on the record that the league didn't want the team to move. It had been two months since the Paul G. Allen Estate announced in mid-May that the team was finally for sale, and the idea that the team is heading to Seattle imminently had taken hold in the public discourse without much evidence.
Silver did say that day that the NBA's "preference" is that the Blazers remain in Portland. But he also opened what figures to be a long public negotiation over where, exactly, the team will play once their bridge lease with the city and Moda Center expires in 2030.
