Five Games To Circle on Your Calendar for 2025-26

What’s not to love here? It’s the opening night of the NBA season. The Thunder are getting their shiny new rings and unveiling their first-ever championship banner. It’s the return of the NBA to NBC for the first time in 24 years. And to top it all off, the new look Rockets are led by Kevin Durant, who gets to do it on the court where it all began for him. Durant, who won a couple of titles of his own in Golden State, didn’t hold back from throwing a few jabs at his old team.

It’s more than just pomp and circumstance, though. This could be a preview of the Western Conference Finals. Durant vs SGA. Sungun vs. Holmgren. VanVleet vs. Williams. Get your popcorn ready.

Over the last 20 years, there have been two NBA debuts that fans have most anticipated. One was the Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama two years ago. The other will be on this night when Cooper Flagg steps on the court for his first regular-season game with the Dallas Mavericks. It’s the inaugural showdown of many between Wembanyama and Flagg, and it could be the rebirth of the Texas rivalry that was made popular last decade by Dirk and Duncan.

Additionally, fans will be watching closely to see if the Spurs continue moving in the right direction. Their 34-win total might not seem impressive from last year, but that’s 12 more than they had in 2023-24. This will also be the debut of new Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson, who is replacing the legendary Gregg Popovich, who retired after 29 seasons on the bench.

It’s quietly become one of the better rivalries in the NBA, one that truly took off in the playoffs two seasons ago. There’s a lot of bad blood between these teams, and any time you get Nikola Jokic and Anthony Edwards on the same court, you know something special is in store.

Furthermore, these are two teams coming off disappointing seasons by their standards. The Nuggets, with all their star power and now a deeper roster, are looking to rebound after their disappointing Game 7 against the Thunder last year. This will be the first time Peacock will be solely telecasting an NBA game.

You can’t include the best must-watch games of the year without mentioning a Christmas classic. It’s not just a battle of two playoff teams; it’s about Steph Curry vs. Cooper Flagg. The man who’s “been there-done that” is squaring off against the future face of the NBA. It’s like the Steph of 10 years (albeit a bit taller) facing off against what’s left of today. Or when Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes went at it in 2018. “Here’s the torch, young man.”

Outside of the two-man duel, the Warriors are still trying to show the world they still have it, while the Mavericks are trying to prove that trading Luka didn’t faze them at all. Like the game above, this could very well be a deep playoff preview.

It’s the Celtics-Lakers. I mean, come on. These could be the two worst teams in the league, and just seeing these two uniforms on the court would get your attention. To make the showdown extra meaningful, the Lakers are unveiling a Pat Riley statue outside of Crypto.com Arena before the game. It’s only fitting that it happens before a rivalry battle that helped define the NBA in the 1980s.

But nonstaglia aside, this is also a potential NBA Finals showdown. The Lakers have championship aspirations with Lebron and Luka, while the Celtics are looking to regain the form that saw them win a championship two years ago. Jaylen Brown and Derrick White will lead the Celtics, but the team is likely to be missing Jayson Tatum, whose status for next season is in serious jeopardy following a torn Achilles tendon.