SEATTLE — The NBA is playing a dangerous game.

I’m not talking about the basketball, which is more foul-friendly and less physical than it’s ever been. I’m not talking about the parade of 3-pointers, tanking teams, deteriorating defense and healthy-scratch stars that threaten to consume the sport. I’m not talking about Tuesday’s tripleheader, which started a 19th consecutive season without the Sonics.

I’m talking about the “leverage game” ESPN insider Brian Windhorst wrote about last week.

According to Windhorst, NBA commissioner Adam Silver indicated to owners at a board of governors meeting last month that Seattle is “no longer a lock” to receive an expansion team before his self-imposed year-end deadline. The 64-year-old longtime lawyer, entering his 12th season as commissioner, even reintroduced Mexico City as an alternative, according to the report.

This isn’t about a venue, because Climate Pledge Arena was purposefully built for NBA basketball. It isn’t about a fanbase, because Seattle brings decades of ticket sales and titles and trauma that Las Vegas or Mexico City can’t counter. It isn’t about a brand, already established and ready to be revived. It isn’t even about an ownership group, considering One Roof Sports and Entertainment already oversees the NHL’s Kraken and recently brought aboard a significant minority investor in Melinda French Gates.

It’s about money, as it always is.

To feed his unfathomably rich bosses another billion, Silver is willing to drag you feet-first across the finish line. He’s willing to further alienate the same fans his league unconscionably abandoned. That, or leave you lying with the finish line in sight.

We know what’s happening here. Because Las Vegas’ bidding war seems set to produce a price tag beyond $10 billion and Seattle’s can’t compare, Silver is applying pressure. According to Seattle Times reporter Tim Booth, the Sonics’ price tag has long resided in the $6-7 billion range. Whether One Roof bumps up its bid, or a losing Las Vegas bidder pivots to Seattle as either a partner or competitor, Silver needs that number to grow.

It’s not necessarily that he doesn’t care about the casualties. Silver reassured during an appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show" on Tuesday that, “Seattle has a great arena. There’s a great NBA tradition there. So we’re looking closely at returning to Seattle.” He added that a Mexico City team is “not in the immediate plans, but down the road I think there’s a real potential there.”

In February, he stated: “I think in fairness to the cities, Seattle and Las Vegas in particular, I’ve been very clear. I don’t want to tease cities or mislead anyone.”

But I keep coming back to former Sonics coach George Karl, who warned on social media this year: “This time better not be bull [expletive]. Bad karma to keep messing around with great sports cities like Seattle!!”

Let’s say Silver doesn’t want to tease you, or leverage your love of the Sonics and 19-year-old scars that still sting every time you touch them. Let’s say he doesn’t want to keep messing around with a great sports city.

He still will, if there’s money to be made.

Because, as Windhorst wrote last week: “It could be argued that Silver's No. 1 job on a day-to-day basis is to increase the value of teams. He has shown to be excellent at it, and naturally this is what he's working on diligently. Breaking away Vegas expansion to get ‘losing’ bidders to look at Seattle, saber-rattling that the league might not add two teams and trying to create leverage by considering other expansion cities such as Mexico City are firmly within this motive.”

It’s a dangerous game, because driving up one cost could come with another. To the NBA, some former Sonics fans are beyond saving — unjustifiably jilted, betrayed and teased and toyed with into oblivion. Another group will be there, buying tickets, bleeding green, no matter how torturously their team is returned.

It’s the massive middle Silver could lose before the finish line.

Because this is the latest indignity for a sports region besieged by dollar signs. In Portland, new Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon’s public arena fight may feel hauntingly familiar. In Vancouver, the Whitecaps’ similar stadium issues will almost certainly result in relocation for the MLS team. In Pullman and Corvallis, Ore., Washington State and Oregon State fell through the cracks of a crumbling Pac-12 Conference. In Seattle, the University of Washington earned admission to a luxury lifeboat by agreeing to receive less TV revenue than 16 other Big Ten schools.

When is it enough? When does merit matter more than money?

Apparently, it doesn’t matter what you deserve, or how much you’ve endured. It matters what you’re willing to pay for. For Pacific Northwest sports fans, and prospective Sonics fans, there may be a breaking point. Silver doesn’t seem to understand that. Though he told "The Pat McAfee Show" last year that “there continues to be enormous passion in that [Seattle] market for the NBA, passion can be broken by decades of disrespect."

This should have been a layup, or at the very least a midrange jumper. But in the modern NBA, those no longer exist.

So, it’s not a lock that the NBA returns to Seattle. It’s also not a lock that some fans will stick around even if it does.

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