Big Reunions Marked on the NBA 2025-26 Calendar
The NBA’s 2025-26 regular season schedule has been revealed, promising high emotions with several games that stand out for the return of emblematic players to their former courts. Alofoke Deportes brings you the details of these unmissable matches.
The week of November 24th to 28th will be key, with two particularly attractive duels. On November 24th, Kevin Durant will return to Phoenix, now as a player for the Houston Rockets. On November 28th, Anthony Davis will return to Los Angeles, but this time defending the colors of the Dallas Mavericks, facing the Lakers in an NBA Cup game.
80 of the 82 games that each team will play this season are now known, including those of the opening week, holiday games, and the NBA Cup schedule. These events highlight the league’s new collaborations with NBC/Comcast and Amazon, as part of the 11-year agreement with these entities and ESPN/ABC, who will maintain the broadcast of the NBA Finals.
Durant’s return to Phoenix will be broadcast on NBC, while Davis’s return to Los Angeles can be seen on Amazon Prime.
The Lakers and Mavericks will face each other three more times during the season: January 24 in Dallas, February 12 in Los Angeles, and April 5 in Dallas.
Furthermore, on February 1st, exactly one year after a game between the Lakers and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, where a trade was finalized, both teams will face each other again on the same stage, in a game that will be broadcast on ABC.
The current champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder, will also have several important games, many of them in the second half of the season. Houston will visit Oklahoma City for the ring ceremony on opening night (October 21), and will return on February 7. The Thunder will play in Houston on January 15.
The Thunder will face the Minnesota Timberwolves, their Western Conference Finals rival, on November 26 in Oklahoma City and March 15. They will face each other twice in Minnesota, on December 19 and January 29.
The four matchups between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder star and last season’s MVP, and Nikola Jokic, 2024 MVP of the Denver Nuggets, will take place starting in February, giving them the opportunity to prove their worth for this season’s award. Denver will play in Oklahoma City on February 27 and March 9, while the Nuggets will host OKC on February 1 and April 10.
Another MVP showdown could happen at the end of the season, as the Lakers and Thunder will face each other twice in a few days: April 2 in OKC and April 7 in Los Angeles.
The Thunder will also have four important games against the Eastern Conference favorites, Cleveland, on January 19 and February 22, and against New York, on March 4 and March 29.
The Knicks and Cavaliers will play their first two games in New York during opening week and on Christmas Day, before a final matchup in Cleveland on February 24.
New York will also receive the Atlanta Hawks, with Trae Young, for the first time this season on January 2. The Cavaliers, for their part, will receive LeBron James in what could be his last game in Cleveland on January 28.
The calendar also includes other notable returns of star players.
Myles Turner, who has played for the Pacers during his first 11 seasons in the NBA, will return to Indiana on November 3 as a Milwaukee Bucks player.
Brook Lopez, new center for the LA Clippers, will make his only visit to Milwaukee on March 29.
Desmond Bane, traded by the Grizzlies to the Orlando Magic in June, will visit Memphis on January 18th.
In consecutive games at the end of that month, the Boston Celtics will host two key players from their championship team who were traded this summer. Jrue Holiday and the Portland Trail Blazers will visit Boston on January 26, while Kristaps Porzingis and the Hawks will do so on January 28.
