Two of the biggest return games of the 2025-26 NBA regular season will take place within a single week in November as the vast majority of the schedule for all 30 NBA teams were released Thursday on ESPN's "NBA Today."
On Nov. 24, Kevin Durant will go back to Phoenix for the first time as a member of the Houston Rockets. A few days later, on Nov. 28, Anthony Davis returns to Los Angeles for the first time as the Dallas Mavericks face the Lakers in an NBA Cup group game.
Each team now knows 80 of the 82 games it will play this season. The opening week and holiday games, as well as the NBA Cup group schedule, were announced earlier this week.
The schedule also highlights the NBA's new partnerships with NBC/Comcast and Amazon as part of the league's 11-year pact with those two broadcast entities alongside ESPN/ABC, which will retain the NBA Finals across the entirety of the new agreement.
Durant's return to Phoenix, which traded the star to Houston in June, will be shown on NBC. Meanwhile, Davis, who was swapped for Luka Doncic in one of the most shocking trades in NBA history in February, will make his return to Los Angeles on Amazon Prime.
The Lakers and Mavericks meet three other times this season: Jan. 24 in Dallas (8:30 p.m., ABC); Feb. 12 in Los Angeles; and April 5 in Dallas.
Speaking of the Doncic trade, on Feb. 1 -- exactly one year after the Lakers played at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks, only for the trade to happen a short time after the game took place -- those two teams will once again square off at MSG on ABC.
The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder also, not surprisingly, have lots of big matchups, with many of those over the back half of the schedule. While Durant and the Rockets visit Oklahoma City for the ring ceremony on opening night (Oct. 21), Houston will also be back in OKC on Feb. 7 (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC), while the Thunder will make their lone trip to Houston on Jan. 15.
The Thunder will first see the Minnesota Timberwolves, their Western Conference Finals opponent, on Nov. 26 (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) in Oklahoma City, where they will again play on March 15 (1 p.m., ESPN). They play in Minnesota twice -- on Dec. 19 and Jan. 29.
All four matchups between Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, last season's MVP, and 2024 MVP Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets take place from February onward -- giving both players a chance to make a late case for this season's award. Denver travels to Oklahoma City on Feb. 27 (9:30 p.m., ESPN) and March 9, while the Nuggets host OKC on Feb. 1 and April 10.
That isn't the only potential MVP showdown late in the season. The Lakers and Thunder face each other twice over the span of a few days -- in OKC on April 2 and then in Los Angeles on April 7.
The Thunder also have four late-season meetings against Eastern Conference favorites Cleveland -- at the Cavs on Jan. 19; in OKC on Feb. 22 (1 p.m. ET, ABC) -- and New York -- at MSG on March 4 (7 p.m. ET, ESPN); in OKC on March 29.
The Knicks and Cavaliers will play its first two matchups in New York during opening week (Oct. 22, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN) and Christmas Day (noon ET, ABC/ESPN) before a final matchup in Cleveland on Feb. 24.
New York will also host the resurgent Atlanta Hawks -- and longtime MSG villain Trae Young -- for the first time this season on Jan. 2. The Cavaliers, meanwhile, will host LeBron James in what could be his final game in Cleveland on Jan. 28 (7 p.m. ET, ESPN).
There are a few other notable returns by star players on the schedule.
Center Myles Turner, who has only played for the Pacers across his first 11 NBA seasons, will make his return to Indiana on Nov. 3 as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks.
New LA Clippers center Brook Lopez will make his lone visit back to Milwaukee on March 29.
Desmond Bane, who was traded by the Grizzlies to the Orlando Magic in a blockbuster deal in June, will visit Memphis on Jan. 18.
In back-to-back games later that month, the Boston Celtics will welcome back a pair of key contributors from their championship team that were traded away this summer. Jrue Holiday and the Portland Trail Blazers visit Boston on Jan. 26, while Kristaps Porzingis and the Hawks visit on Jan. 28.
