The NBA on NBC will reportedly return with a doubleheader featuring the league’s three main stars during the network’s 22-year absence — Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry and LeBron James.
The October 21 NBA Opening Night doubleheader on NBC and Peacock will feature Durant’s Houston Rockets against the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, followed by the league’s highest-rated matchup, Curry’s Warriors against James’ (and Luka Doncic’s) Lakers, Shams Charania of ESPN reported Friday.
James, Curry and Durant have been — along with the late Kobe Bryant — the main faces of the NBA during the nearly 23 years since NBC last aired a game. All three featured prominently on NBC during last year’s Summer Olympics as part of the gold medal winning U.S. basketball squad.
The previous version of the NBA on NBC debuted in November 1990 with Magic Johnson and the Lakers facing David Robinson and the Spurs.
As part of the league’s new media rights deal, NBC is set to carry Tuesday night games throughout the season in an unusual regionalized format, where most markets will receive only one of the two games — a 7:30 or 8 PM ET game for the Eastern and Central time zones and a 7:30 or 8 PM PT game (10:30 or 11 PM ET) in the Mountain and Pacific. (Both games will be available to stream, regardless of time zone, on Peacock.) Opening Night is an exception, as both games will be seen across the country on NBC.
In addition to the Opening Night NBC doubleheader, Charania also reported that the league’s traditional five-game Christmas Day slate on ESPN/ABC will open with the Knicks hosting the Cavaliers, followed by four-straight Western Conference matchups: Spurs-Thunder, Rockets-Lakers, Mavericks-Warriors and Timberwolves-Nuggets.
The Rockets-Lakers matchup will pit Durant against James assuming both are healthy, while the Mavericks-Warriors game is likely to feature #1 pick Cooper Flagg.
Last year, the league used the opportunity afforded by a lighter, two-game NFL schedule to feature James against Curry in primetime on Christmas night. That game averaged nearly eight million viewers, the largest NBA regular season audience since 2019. With the NFL returning to a full Christmas tripleheader this year, it would seem fairly evident that the league did not want to use up its very best matchups on the holiday.
The coming NBA season is the first of the league’s new media rights deal with Disney (ESPN/ABC), Comcast (NBC/Peacock) and Amazon’s Prime Video.
