An NBA Europe League Could Launch Play By 2027: Report

NBA commissioner Adam Silver has a lot on his plate.

Topping the list is that the NBA tanking epidemic hit its apex this season. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported on Tuesday that the league is crafting “a new anti-tanking draft reform termed the ‘3-2-1 lottery.”

The “3-2-1” lottery would introduce a “relegation zone” that penalizes the three worst teams by giving them fewer lottery balls to discourage tanking, beginning with the 2027 NBA Draft. The overall framework is more complicated than that, which Charania explained well here, but the overarching feedback so far is that basketball fans hate the idea.

Persistent problems in his existing league aren’t deterring Silver from launching a new league, however.

“The NBA, I’m told, continues to target 2027-28 as the planned inaugural season for launching NBA Europe,” longtime NBA reporter Marc Stein posted on X on Tuesday. “Commissioner Adam Silver and deputy commissioner Mark Tatum have made it clear they hope to collaborate with the EuroLeague rather than compete against it, and the NBA has announced that it held talks today with EuroLeague representatives at FIBA headquarters in Switzerland.”

Stein continued, “It’s believed that more than 20 existing European basketball and football clubs, including teams currently in the EuroLeague, have lodged bids for NBA Europe franchises.”

Whether the NBA actually expands to Europe remains to be seen, but it is all but confirmed that the league will add two expansion teams. The league’s board of governors’ March unanimous vote authorized the formal exploration of establishing a team in Las Vegas and returning a team to Seattle. Per Charania, those teams’ inaugural season is expected to be in 2028.

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This story was originally published April 28, 2026 at 7:50 PM.