The Spurs are once again front and center in the NBA’s schedule rollout, and this time the league is making it plain: if you want to see San Antonio in 2026-27, you won’t have to look hard.
That’s a far cry from the year before Victor Wembanyama arrived, when the NBA gave the Spurs just four national TV games in 2022-23. Three were on NBA TV, and the lone ESPN appearance - a Jan. 13 game against the Golden State Warriors - came five weeks before All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City. After that, it was all local broadcasts for a 22-60 team.
San Antonio’s lottery luck changed everything. Since drafting Wembanyama, the Spurs have stayed in the league’s brightest spotlight, and Wednesday’s latest wave of schedule news made that obvious again. The NBA has already revealed its opening week and Christmas Day slates, and the Spurs are all over both.
Mitch Johnson’s team opens on Oct. 20 by hosting Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s Oklahoma City Thunder, fresh off a seven-game Western Conference Finals series that has helped turn the matchup into one of the league’s most intriguing new rivalries. Three nights later, San Antonio hosts the Houston Rockets at Austin’s Moody Center in what amounts to a quasi-home game, paired with the annual “I-35 Series” in February.
The Spurs also land a Christmas Day showcase, heading back to Madison Square Garden to face the reigning champion New York Knicks in an NBA Finals rematch. All three of those games will be nationally televised.
And the league didn’t stop there.
Three of San Antonio’s four NBA Cup Group Play games are also set for national audiences. The Spurs are in West Group C with the Warriors, Kings, Trail Blazers and Lakers.
Group Play runs every Friday from Oct. 30-Nov. 27, with additional games on Tuesday, Nov. 24 and Wednesday, Nov.
The knockout rounds are already on the calendar too: the NBA Cup Quarterfinals are scheduled for Dec. 4 and Dec. 5 in team markets, the Semifinals for Dec. 8 and Dec. 9 in team markets, and the Final for Dec. 11 at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
San Antonio’s national exposure stretches beyond North America as well. The Spurs will represent the NBA in Europe for the second time in three seasons, with Wembanyama returning to Accor Arena in Paris against the New Orleans Pelicans on Jan. 14, then meeting them again at Manchester’s Co-op Live on Jan.
- Those games will air on Prime at 1 p.m. and 9:30 a.m.
Central, respectively.
There’s another major date on the calendar, too. The Spurs are part of the NBA’s inaugural President’s Day quadrupleheader and will play Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Miami Heat at 4 p.m. Central on Feb. 15 at Kaseya Center on NBC/Peacock.
Under the current TV rights deal, teams can max out at 34 nationally televised games. Last season, the Knicks, Lakers, Warriors and Thunder shared that top tier. San Antonio opened last season with 22 national TV games, then saw broadcast changes push that total to 28 around All-Star Weekend.
So far, the Spurs have already been tagged for nine. With the rest of the 2026-27 regular season schedule set to be released at 2 p.m. Thursday, it wouldn’t be a surprise if San Antonio ends up joining - or replacing - the teams at the full 34-game ceiling.
For context, Wembanyama’s rookie season brought 19 national TV games. That was already a massive leap from the four San Antonio had in 2022-23. Now, 34 doesn’t sound so outrageous.
In Other News...
P.J. Washington Trade Buzz Puts Mavericks Forward Situation In Focus
The Spurs are weighing a familiar kind of deadline question: whether to keep most of their roster intact or use the market to find a cleaner fit around what they already have. In that conversation, Dallas forward P.J. Washington has surfaced as a player who would make sense for San Antonio because he brings defensive versatility and enough shooting to help a team looking to raise its level without blowing up its structure.
One proposed framework has Washington coming back in a deal centered on Harrison Barnes, which gives the idea some texture even if nothing official has been reported. For the Spurs, the appeal is obvious, but so is the caution, since deadline talks often begin with the kind of match that looks simple on paper and then gets complicated once teams start asking what the real price should be. [Read more 🡒]
Spurs Young Core Is Earning Attention Behind Wembanyama
Victor Wembanyama already sits at the center of everything the Spurs are building, but the rest of the young core is starting to draw real attention of its own. A Bleacher Report projection that looked ahead to 2030 pegged Wembanyama as the leagues top player, while also slotting Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper into the mix as rising talents whose development will matter just as much to San Antonios long-term picture.
Castle came in at No. 27 and Harper at No. 15 in that projection, a sign that both are being viewed as more than supporting pieces even if neither is expected to match Wembanyamas franchise-player ceiling. The Spurs can live with that distinction, because the bigger question is how much each can sharpen the rough edges in their games and turn promise into dependable production around the player who changes the ceiling for everyone else. [Read more 🡒]
Dylan Harpers Rise Just Turned Up A Real Spurs Debate
Dylan Harpers rookie year already had people in San Antonio talking about how quickly he was climbing, and now the conversation has spilled into a different lane entirely. In the upcoming NBA 2K27 game, Harper has been rated 85 overall, a number that places him ahead of some established names and underscores how much his stock has risen after a strong postseason showing.
For the Spurs, the rating is less about a video game number than what it hints at heading into the next season: a young player who may already be pushing into a bigger role sooner than expected. Harpers playoff line of 14.1 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.7 assists on 52.5% shooting only adds to the sense that his development is moving fast, and with NBA 2K27 set to release soon, the debate around where he belongs in the pecking order is only getting louder. [Read more 🡒]