The NBA Cup is Adam Silver’s most ambitious project yet. The NBA Commissioner is hellbent on adding some spiciness to an otherwise mundane start of the regular season.

The Oklahoma City Thunder advanced to the 2024 NBA Cup finals after a semifinal victory over the Houston Rockets. Their stay in Las Vegas has been extended by a few days. They will face the Milwaukee Bucks for an 83rd game this season with the grand prize of $500K per player on the line.

Besides adding excitement to the early portion of the season, Silver also has other motivations for the NBA Cup — test-driving Las Vegas as a potential NBA market. It’s an open secret at this point the league is due for an expansion. If the NBA goes from 30 to 32 franchises, Seattle and Las Vegas have been the consensus top two guesses for the new teams.

Las Vegas has been a hot bed for professional sports franchises. In the last decade, they’ve added the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights, NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders and eventually the MLB’s Las Vegas Athletics. The NBA will want to get on the action soon too.

The NBA already hosts its summer league in Las Vegas every July. So some sense of an NBA fanbase has slowly grown over the years thanks to the top prospects playing their first games for their new franchises there.

From the television, Las Vegas provided a weird atmosphere. It was as quiet as the NBA Bubble era early on but the traveling Thunder fans eventually took over. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander received loud “MVP” chants and “OKC” chants could be heard through the broadcast in the final moments.

So what does Gilgeous-Alexander think of Las Vegas as an NBA market? The MVP candidate is a fan of it.

“The environment was dope. The fans were into it. A basketball city. It was really fun playing out there,” Gilgeous-Alexander said about Las Vegas. “I think it’d be great (if they get an NBA team). The Cup is here, summer league is here. We can feel the basketball culture in Vegas as players when we come. I think it’s only a matter of time. They deserve it for sure.”

It’s still a long ways away, but Las Vegas has gained one notable supporter for an NBA franchise. Gilgeous-Alexander will get a chance to play at T-Mobile Arena one last time in front of a national audience.