The NBA is wasting no time leaning into what San Antonio has become. With the league rolling out its schedule on Tuesday, the Spurs landed some of the biggest dates on the calendar: opening night, Christmas Day, and a special in-Austin matchup during Formula 1 week.
The season starts with a heavyweight right away. San Antonio will host the Oklahoma City Thunder in a rematch of the Western Conference Finals, a game that also brings together the league’s top MVP storylines. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander comes in looking for payback after the Thunder’s repeat-title hopes were ended, while Victor Wembanyama is the player most likely to stop him from winning a third straight MVP award.
That matchup has already grown into one of the NBA’s best. Last season opened with Oklahoma City as the defending champ and San Antonio as a promising young challenger, but the Spurs surged faster than expected and changed the conversation. They beat the Thunder in the NBA Cup in Vegas and again on Christmas Day at Paycom Center, then won four of the five regular-season meetings before the rivalry reached its peak in the playoffs.
That Western Conference Finals went the distance, and it had the kind of moments that stick. Wembanyama’s long-range shot in Game 1 of the double-overtime battle set the tone, and San Antonio’s young group eventually finished the job in Game 7 in Oklahoma City. The more these teams meet, the more the rivalry seems to sharpen both sides.
There has also been plenty of talk about Chet Holmgren and Wembanyama, but Wembanyama made it clear he sees it differently. The real showdown, as the source material puts it, is with Gilgeous-Alexander, who won MVP last year. Now the two get to open the season against each other with the same trophy in mind.
San Antonio’s other major spotlight game comes with a very different backdrop. The Spurs will host the Houston Rockets in Austin during the first week of the season, and the timing lines up with Formula 1 weekend at Circuit of the Americas. The game is set for Friday, which should give the Spurs room to show up around the track during Saturday qualifying and Sunday’s race.
The organization has spent years building its presence in Austin, with events there dating back to the 2022-23 season and two games at UT’s Moody Center. Last year’s Spurs Week lined up with South By Southwest, and this year adds the crossover with the U.S.
Grand Prix. The fit is natural enough: F1 brings global star power, and San Antonio has already made moves there, including a partnership last year with French automaker Alpine for co-branded apparel.
Drivers have attended Spurs games before, and players have gone to the race.
The matchup itself should draw attention too. Kevin Durant and the Rockets make it especially appealing, and Durant already appeared in one of these Austin games two seasons ago as a member of the Phoenix Suns. The weekend figures to pull fans from San Antonio, Austin and Houston, along with the massive crowd heading into town for the race.
Then there’s Christmas. The Spurs go back to Madison Square Garden for a Finals rematch against the Knicks, and the memory of that 29-point collapse in Game 4 still hangs over it. Victor Wembanyama, De’Aaron Fox and the rest of the roster will have had six months to sit with it, and this trip gives them a chance to show what they’ve learned.
It will be San Antonio’s only visit to the Garden this season unless the teams meet again in June. Wembanyama has already played there on Christmas, too, putting up 42 points and 18 rebounds in 2024 while Mikal Bridges answered with 41 and the Knicks escaped 117-114. If there’s one date on the schedule Wembanyama is likely to circle, this is probably it.
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Stephon Castle Gets An Early Spurs Test That Could Mean Everything
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Castle showed real progress last season as both a scorer and a passer, and the next step is proving he can keep building when defenses start crowding him from the jump. The ball-handling has to hold up, the scoring has to translate against pressure, and the early returns should tell the Spurs plenty about his growth. It is the kind of opening stretch that can reveal a lot fast, even if it leaves the bigger question of how far he can climb for later. [Read more 🡒]
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For the Spurs, the assignment is about as direct as it gets: an opening-night meeting with Oklahoma City, the team everyone else is chasing. It is also the kind of game that immediately places Victor Wembanyama in one of the leagues biggest early-season spotlights, with other marquee names such as LeBron James and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander helping define a loaded night around the league. For San Antonio, it is a strong signal that the league expects the conversation to run through them again. [Read more 🡒]
Spurs Fans Can Finally Start Planning Around A Big 2026-27 Start
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There is also the added wrinkle of the Emirates NBA Cup 2026, where the Spurs landed in Group C with the Lakers, Trail Blazers, Warriors and Kings. The full Cup schedule is still due Aug. 12, which leaves the complete picture unfinished for now, but it does give San Antonio another early-season marker to watch as the team prepares for a potentially busy start. [Read more 🡒]