Who Are The 8 Players You Would Protect from An Expansion Draft?

[Arioch]

Geographically, MIN is more West than MEM.

Yes, but they are far closer physically to the East teams in that proposed division than they are to any Western team--while Memphis and New Orleans are relatively close to the TX and Oklahoma teams.

At least part of the point of the conferences (and all the point, if there is any, of the divisions) is to keep travel times down when possible and moving MN to the East would do that most effectively.