NBA Schedule Release: LeBron, KD, Jokic, Curry to headline opening night
In the first leak of the 2023-24 NBA schedule, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Stephen Curry are set to headline opening night.
LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Nikola Jokic, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Jamal Murray, Anthony Davis, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal – these are all players that are expected to be involved in the 2023-24 opening night festivities for the NBA.
According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, the opening night slate of the NBA for the 2023-24 season has been released and it will feature a doubleheader that begins with the Los Angeles Lakers visiting the defending champion Denver Nuggets followed by the Golden State Warriors hosting the new-look Phoenix Suns.
Both games should offer quite the intrigue. A rematch of the Western Conference Finals is very much expected. It’ll be interesting to see if the Lakers can or have improved enough over the course of the offseason to put up a better fight against the defending champs.
In the second game, the Suns, with the big addition of Bradley Beal, will be looking to send a message on night 1 against a Warriors team that will be looking to get off to a strong start to the season.
The Warriors were derailed by injuries for much of the regular season last year. Their season culminated in the second-round playoff loss at the hands of the Lakers.
It’s interesting that opening night doesn’t feature an Eastern Conference matchup. I don’t want to read too much into that but I can’t help but wonder if the uncertainty of a potential Damian Lillard and James Harden trade had anything to do with that.
Would the NBA be willing to schedule the Miami Heat or Philadelphia 76ers on opening night without knowing what their respective rosters will look like? It’s something to think about if nothing else.
When will the rest of the NBA schedule be released?
Over the next few weeks, the expectation is that the rest of the schedule is going to slowly begin to leak. A few of the bigger dates that we’ll likely hear about before the official schedule release are opening week and the Christmas Day slate.
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Either way, it doesn’t seem like we’re going to have to wait much longer. It would be surprising if the entire schedule wasn’t released at some point next week. The start of training camps is still more than six weeks away, but the schedule release is going to help get our minds off the dog days of the offseason.