The NBA has finally put the Sixers’ 2026-27 season on the board, and the league has handed them a schedule that matches the buzz. With Jaylen Brown now paired with Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe, and with LeBron James in the mix after his stunning signing, this has become one of the league’s biggest weekly draws before a game has even been played.
The full 80-game slate arrived Thursday, with two additional games still to be set after NBA Cup Group Play wraps up. And while the schedule itself is only one piece of the puzzle, a few things jump out right away for Philadelphia.
The first one is the back-to-backs. That has become one of the most important parts of any Sixers schedule, and this year’s version looks friendlier than last season’s.
Embiid has not played in both games of a back-to-back since January of 2024, and even with optimism around his current condition, it’s difficult to picture him being pushed too hard now that the roster is so loaded. James is a different case, but at 42 years old around the middle of the season, he has already shown he may sit out halves of back-to-backs.
Last season, Philadelphia had 16 back-to-backs, tied for the most in the NBA. This time, the Sixers have their fewest back-to-backs in three seasons.
That lighter workload is part of a broader break for Philadelphia in the league’s scheduling logic. The Sixers are one of the teams allowed up to 34 national TV appearances, and James’ presence makes that ceiling easy to understand.
He remains must-see television, and even as the Sixers have often been a team full of talent but short on health, this version is different. James has turned them into a true national attraction.
The NBA Cup brings a much tougher challenge. Philadelphia landed in Eastern Conference Group B, where the path is steep and the margin for error is tiny.
Each conference has three groups of five teams, with every club playing the others in its group once. The group winner moves on to the Knockout Rounds, along with the top wild card team, and point differential decides tiebreakers.
The Sixers have failed to get out of Group Play three straight years, and this time the group includes James’ first game of the season in Cleveland.
The conference schedule also offers some useful breaks. As always, the Sixers will play their Atlantic Division rivals four times each and get two games against every Western Conference team.
Beyond that, there’s the usual split of four games against four in-conference, out-of-division opponents and three games against the other six. For Philadelphia, the four-game opponents are Charlotte, Chicago, Indiana and Miami, while Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Orlando and Washington are on the three-game list.
The extra games against Charlotte and Chicago look especially helpful, and getting home-court advantage in the season series against Atlanta and Detroit is another plus.
The calendar is packed with the kind of dates fans circle immediately. The Sixers open on Oct. 20 at Madison Square Garden, where they’ll watch the Knicks raise a banner before trying to make their own statement.
Two nights later, on Oct. 22, Philadelphia gets its first home look at James and Brown against the Cavaliers.
James’ return trips to Cleveland are built-in events, and the Sixers go there twice: Nov. 6 in NBA Cup Group Play and again on March 1. Kelly Oubre Jr. comes back to Philadelphia for the first time on Nov. 15 with the Indiana Pacers.
There’s also the annual Embiid-Jokić spotlight. The Nuggets visit Philadelphia on Dec. 2, then host the Sixers on March 28. Christmas Day brings another marquee stage, with the Lakers coming to town on Dec. 25 for James’ return to Los Angeles as part of the league’s five-game slate.
Philadelphia also gets the usual league showcase dates. The Sixers are on the Martin Luther King Jr.
Day schedule and will visit the Atlanta Hawks on Jan. 18.
Brown’s return to Boston lands on Jan. 21.
The NBA’s new quadrupleheader on Presidents’ Day, Feb. 15, includes a road game for the Sixers against the Dallas Mavericks.
Another headline game comes on March 4, when Luka Dončic and the Lakers visit Philadelphia. That one doubles as another James-versus-his-former-team meeting and a return for Quentin Grimes.
There are other stretches that stand out too, including the four meetings with Boston, the four against New York, and the Sixers’ games against Miami. If this roster hits its ceiling, a couple of those matchups could look a lot bigger by season’s end.
Here is the Sixers' complete schedule for the 2026-27 regular season:
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