The schedule for the 2025-2026 NBA season is starting to take place, as early pieces of the schedule are making their way out.
For Opening Night on Oct. 21, the NBA will kick off the year with two big games on NBC, per ESPN’s Shams Charania. The night will include the Houston Rockets playing the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Golden State Warriors traveling to the Los Angeles Lakers.
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The first matchup has the defending NBA champs hosting the Rockets, who finished second in the West last season. The second could pit two league heavyweights, Warriors guard Stephen Curry and Lakers forward LeBron James, against each other to start the season (though James’ future with the Lakers is currently a little uncertain).
Either way, it opens the season with the league’s triumphant return to NBC, as the network hosts NBA games for the first time in more than two decades.
In addition to Opening Night, Charania has offered up a report on the NBA’s Christmas Day slate. Those matchups are:
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Cleveland Cavaliers at New York Knicks
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San Antonio Spurs at Oklahoma City Thunder
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Houston Rockets at the Lakers
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Dallas Mavericks at the Warriors
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Minnesota Timberwolves at the Denver Nuggets
Four of the five matchups will be between Western Conference teams, with only Cavs-Knicks representing the East. Additionally, the Lakers and Warriors will be the only teams featured on both of the NBA’s signature days.
Has the NFL supplanted the NBA on Christmas Day?
For decades, Christmas Day was a signature part of the NBA season, with the league holding games on the holiday since the 1940s. But the NFL has recently started to encroach on the NBA by hosting Christmas games of its own, in a direct connection to the league’s success on Thanksgiving.
Last season, the NBA had its most-watched Christmas Day in five years, with 5.25 million viewers across the five games on ABC and ESPN — a 84% viewership jump from the previous year. But that number falls well, well short of the NFL, who had 65 million total viewers on Netflix, averaging 24 million viewers.
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In January, LeBron James admitted on the Kelce brothers’ New Heights podcast that the NFL “kicked our a**” last Christmas “from a viewership standpoint.”
Part of that was the added entertainment, as Beyoncé’s halftime show drew some of that viewership. But overall, the NFL trounced the NBA last Christmas, marking a troubling trend for the NBA’s future on the holiday.
This year’s Christmas Day schedule for the NFL includes three matchups: Dallas Cowboys-Washington Commanders, Detroit Lions-Minnesota Vikings and Denver Broncos-Kansas City Chiefs. The slate will feature some division rivalries, some big names, and overall some big viewership draws.
However, the 2025 NBA slate doesn’t offer the punchiest matchups from the league. Despite some hopes that the league would feature a Lakers-Mavericks game — a.k.a., a Luka Dončić homecoming — on either Opening Night or Christmas, that doesn’t seem to be the case this season.
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The games offer up some star power, and Cavs-Knicks offers up a big-name, standings-relevant matchup (at least based on last year’s standings). But overall, the holiday lineup is missing a little bit of oomph — though, of course, a lot can happen before December 25 to change that.
