All three Las Vegas bids are at $10 billion or more, Shams Charania says, as Kenny Smith calls the expansion race ‘right down to the wire’

Three weeks ago, the Las Vegas expansion race looked like it had shrunk to two bidders. Now all three finalists are at the league’s asking price. “The NBA is getting closer and closer on a decision and a ruling on the winning bid for the Las Vegas group,” Shams Charania said on Inside the NBA on Wednesday night. “My understanding is sources are telling me that all three of the finalists are at $10 billion and potentially more than that.”

That includes the group of Canadian billionaire Steve Apostolopoulos and former Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry, which has Kenny Smith as an investor. In late October, that group said it would not raise its offer once the league told bidders the franchise would cost $10 billion or more. If it is now at that number too, the NBA has what any seller wants at the end of an auction: three buyers who have all met the floor, with the decision coming down to who goes highest and whose arena plan the owners trust.

Joining Inside the NBA tip-off — on Jaylen Brown-Jayson Tatum; the first trade of the season; and the latest on expansion, with all three Las Vegas finalists at franchise valuation of $10 billion plus: pic.twitter.com/C8GhHnYcLf

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 12, 2026

Kenny Smith on the set, and in the bidding

The moment was awkward in the way only that studio can be. Smith was sitting next to Charania when his own group came up. He joked that a phone call that interrupted the show earlier in the night had come from “Steve,” then declined to confirm the money. “I can’t speak on the accuracy of dollars and cents, but overall, the process is much longer than I thought it would be,” Smith said. He called being part of it “a great deal of education” and said he had put together his own investors “to raise a lot of capital” for the Apostolopoulos-Lasry bid. Earlier reporting put Smith’s share at about 20% of the bid.

“It’s right down to the wire,” Smith said. “I haven’t lost a lot in the playoffs, but I know the wire when it gets to the wire.” Charania answered that the stakes go well beyond the fee: “All in, this is going to be $12 to $13 billion,” he said, a figure that covers the expansion fee plus the cost of building a new arena.

The three groups at $10 billion

Group	Who is in it	What it brings
Walton-Laurie	Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie, former Blues owner Bill Laurie, Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban	The deepest money in the race and a planned arena district next to Allegiant Stadium; seen by insiders as the front-runner
Foley-Colangelo	Golden Knights owner Bill Foley, Hall of Famer and former Suns owner Jerry Colangelo	A proven Las Vegas launch: Foley paid $500 million for the Golden Knights in 2017 and won the Stanley Cup in 2023; a new arena if it wins
Apostolopoulos-Lasry	Steve Apostolopoulos and his brothers, Marc Lasry, Kenny Smith	Lasry’s NBA ownership experience: bought into the Bucks at $550 million in 2014, sold at a $3.5 billion valuation in 2023

The Walton-Laurie group has been seen as the favorite for weeks, mainly because of the money behind it. The Lauries have a home in Henderson, just outside Las Vegas, and added Durban, who owns about 22% of the Raiders, in October. Foley’s pitch is that he has done this before in the same city. Colangelo’s Las Vegas Jacks group brought the arena plan and long relationships around the league. Apostolopoulos has chased other teams before, including the Washington Commanders, and Lasry has argued that Las Vegas can become the league’s third great franchise behind the Lakers and Knicks.

On Oct. 28, Lasry said he was still a finalist but added, “I think the other side’s higher, but I don’t really know.” He put his offer at between $9 billion and $10 billion and said a winner could be picked “within the next two to four weeks.” Two weeks later, Charania’s report says the gap at the top has closed.

Why the other 30 owners are watching the number

Expansion fees go to the existing teams, not the league office. At $10 billion, each of the 30 current clubs would collect about $333 million from Las Vegas alone, and every extra billion adds roughly $33 million per team. The money also sits outside the basketball revenue that is split with players under the collective bargaining agreement, which is why owners have pushed the price as high as the market will bear. Whichever group wins still needs the votes of at least 23 of the 30 owners, and the league has targeted the 2028-29 season for new teams to start.

Seattle is the second check, and it is a smaller one. Charania said the league will pick the Las Vegas winner first and then “turn their attention to Seattle,” where Kraken owner Samantha Holloway is the leading bidder with Melinda French Gates in her group. “She’s, my understanding, increasing her seriousness and her aggressiveness to try to get Seattle back to the NBA,” he said. “So we’ll have a decision on Kenny’s group, on Samantha Holloway’s group, all by the end of December.”

That shift matters because Seattle’s price has lagged. Earlier this month, reports put the city in a lower band of about $6 billion to $6.5 billion, against a league target of about $7 billion. Holloway controls Climate Pledge Arena, the only building in Seattle ready for an NBA team, and that has kept rival bidders away. The two Las Vegas groups that lose could still look at Seattle, which is one reason the league wants Las Vegas settled first.

The next question: who moves East

Two new Western teams would leave the West with 17 clubs and the East with 15, so one current Western team would have to switch conferences. Damichael Cole reported on Wednesday that league-wide conversations about that move are picking up, and that the Grizzlies and Timberwolves are the two most likely candidates.

Travel is the main test. Minnesota has fewer travel hours to Eastern opponents than Memphis this season, with short flights to the Great Lakes markets. Memphis has a central location but fewer nearby Eastern cities; its closest NBA market is Atlanta. Adam Silver has talked about the Grizzlies growing their footprint across Tennessee, and an Eastern schedule could make that easier. Both teams would have a reason to want the switch. Nothing has been decided, and the league is expected to settle the new teams before it redraws the map.