Alright, my proposal to add Seattle and Vancouver also involves adopting a new schedule format that greatly increases the amount of division games.
Right now, NBA teams only play 16 division games which is only roughly 20% of their annual schedule. In contrast, teams in the other big 4 leagues play at least a third of their schedule in their division.
Under my new alignment, the Central and Southwest Divisions would each have 6 teams and the others would remain at 5.
Every team would play every non-division opponent, even those in the same conference, twice a year home and road - 54 games for teams in the 5-team divisions, 52 games for teams in the 6-team divisions.
The remainder of each team's schedule is played within the division - 7 games against each team for 28 games for teams in the 5-team divisions, and 6 games against each team for 30 games for teams in the 6-team divisions.
When expanding to 36 teams later on, in order to keep the division games at a high enough amount, teams would go to playing each opponent in the other conference just once a year - 9 teams at home, 9 on the road, changing every 2 years so that each team gets to visit Calgary and Edmonton at least once over a 4-year cycle. That adds up to 18 games.
Each team would play its in-conference non-division foes twice each home and road, for a total of 24 games.
All teams would play 8 games against each of their division rivals, for a total of 40 games.
40 + 18 +24 = 82
These schedule formats aim to drive down travel costs.
For the Alberta team, over a 4-year cycle each of its home cities will host 8 games against each division foe, 2 games against each remaining Western team, and 1 game against each Eastern team. Over each two-year sub-cycle, non-division Western foes will visit one city and Eastern foes will visit the other, changing every two years.