Kevin Durant is getting a homecoming that fits the moment.
When the San Antonio Spurs open their 2026-27 season against the Houston Rockets on October 23, 2026, the game won’t be in San Antonio at all. It will be played at Moody Center on the University of Texas campus in Austin, a setting that gives Durant’s return to Texas a much bigger spotlight.
That matters because Austin is where Durant built the first chapter of his basketball rise. He spent the 2006-07 season at Texas, arrived as a highly touted freshman, and wasted no time becoming one of the biggest names in the sport.
In that lone college year, he averaged more than 25 points and nearly 9 rebounds per game, won national player of the year honors, and led the Longhorns through a strong season before entering the NBA Draft. Even now, fans still call him a Longhorns legend.
Nearly 20 years later, Durant is back in Texas again, only this time in a Rockets uniform. After a multi-team trade in 2025, he landed in Houston, setting up a rare full-circle moment when he walks back onto the same campus where his star first took off.
For the Spurs, the decision to bring the game to Austin is part of a familiar pattern. The city sits about 80 miles north of San Antonio on Interstate 35, and plenty of Spurs fans already live in Austin or the surrounding Central Texas area. The franchise has leaned into that connection with what it calls the I-35 Series, regularly playing one or two home games each season at Moody Center since 2023.
Those games have drawn strong crowds, brought in local economic activity, and kept the Spurs visible in a market that is heavily tied to University of Texas athletics and does not have its own permanent NBA team.
Moody Center also makes sense from a basketball standpoint. It’s a modern, NBA-caliber building with the kind of facilities that work for players, staff, and fans alike. Add in the Rockets, Durant’s Texas roots, and the timing of Opening Week, and the matchup has the kind of built-in buzz teams love to promote.
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Rockets Face A Real Problem With Kevin Durant's New Trio
Through the opening stretch of the 2025-26 season, Houston has had to sort out what Kevin Durant, Alperen Sengun and Reed Sheppard actually look like together, and the early answer has not been encouraging on one end of the floor. The Rockets brought enough talent into the mix to think the trio could form part of a dangerous core, but the fit has forced Ime Udoka into some uncomfortable lineup decisions, especially when the games get tighter and the defensive assignments get more demanding.
Marcus Smart is one of the obvious names to watch as Houston keeps searching for cleaner combinations, because the Rockets need more than scoring talent to make this arrangement work. Sheppards development remains a major part of the equation, too, since his growth could change the way the team balances creation and resistance around Durant and Sengun, and it is still unclear whether this group will settle in during the year or need a different look next season. [Read more 🡒]
Rockets And Kevin Durant Just Got Dragged Into A Respect Debate
The NBAs early rollout of marquee games for the 2026-27 season put Houston in an awkward spot, even with Kevin Durant now on the roster. As the league highlighted its season opener and Christmas Day showcase lineup, the Rockets were among the notable omissions, a surprising omission for a team coming off a strong year and trying to stay in the center of the national conversation.
Durants absence from the Christmas slate stood out even more because those games are usually reserved for the leagues biggest draws and most bankable stars. For Houston, it is less about hurt feelings than about status, because schedule placement is often read as a measure of respect, and the Rockets were left watching other teams and names grab the spotlight instead. [Read more 🡒]