Most nationally televised games: Knicks (34), , Spurs (34) , Sixers (34) , Lakers (34) , Thunder (30)
Maximum amount of televised games allowed is 34
https://pr.nba.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2026/08/2026-27-NBA-Regular-Season-Schedule-By-Team.pdf
Knicks (34)
Spurs (34)
Sixers (34)
Lakers (34)
Thunder (30)
The Kentavious Caldwell Pope effect
I get the joke, since you brought up his name, it reminded me of a question I have for Sixers fans:
Was the KCP signing needed?
I admittedly maybe watched one or two regular season Philly games last season, but looking at Philly’s roster, it appears what they actually need is a big.
LeKlutch guy
kcp worth it for minimum for depth and im guessing sixers offseason isn’t over yet, but we’ll see, i think they need a legit backup big.
I’m a Big Bona fan
The contract isn’t my question. That’s more than passable.
A big reason I asked my question is because the Sixers offseason IS over. They can’t sign anyone - even to a bare bones contract - until mid-December.
The exception would be a trade, but Maxey nor Brown are going anywhere.
Bron won’t agree to be traded.
The Sixers lack bigs. Trading Embiid makes no sense.
Sixers don’t have much perimeter shooting so KCP will be needed
A list of Philly players that shot better from three than KCP last season:
LeBron. Maxey. Embiid. Brown. Edgecombe.
I only even looked at five other players on the team and found five with better 3-pt shooters.
Definitely need a big behind Embiid for the playoffs but we also need shooting depth. Sixers had no shooting last year
As I replied to the other gentleman, KCP shot worse from 3 last season than anyone in the Sixers starting five.
Prime KCP makes a lot of sense for the team. And I’m not against the move in general.
Just rough to have that be your last realistic personnel movement for four months. When your a team that severely lacks big depth.
He’s probably their 8th man right now
LePower of Friendship.
I’m sure they’re looking for a big during the season or maybe if somebody gets bought out. We can’t sign another minimum until December I think because of the hard cap.
Wemby, LeBron, Luka, Brunson, and Shai. Superstars sell. Makes sense
If you extend it to the top 7:
34 - Knicks
34 - Spurs
34 - 76ers
34 - Lakers
30 - Thunder
28 - Warriors
28 - Nuggets
It basically shakes out to the current top 3 players (SGA, Wemby, Jokic), the 2 biggest brands (Lakers, Knicks), and the 2 biggest global superstars (Lebron, Steph).
Impressive dubs still have so many even with Jimmy being out.
Fans aren’t lining up to see Butler and you know it
Yeah, it’s because of Podz.
His jerseys are flying off the racks
He finally scored 30 and the league knows the flood gates are about to open
Next 30 years are his!
PP
Podz & Porz show
Steph brings the views baby
Warriors are almost always involved in a bunch of the most viewed regular season games even when the team isn’t good. Curry is the #1 draw in the NBA and it’s not close.
and it’s not close
Come on. Let’s not do this needless hyperbolic exaggeration
It’s not…
Feels like we could get a lot of flexing in the 2nd half of the year. But at the same time there isnt a lot of competition for the 7⁄7:30 PM PT time slot because clippers, kings, blazers and suns are pretty uninspiring also
Sacramento or New Orleans could sign Steph and I’d start to watch them.
I’ll be 100% honest, I cannot say that for a single other player in the game. Maybe if someone pops off on a heater or something… But every game Steph is playing in will be fun.
impressive isn’t the word i’d use lol
And right below are the Celtics w 27
Wolves also, then Heat with 25
And just barely below that are the Grizzlies with 2 streaming service games and no Natl TV ones
Dw the Boozer Brigade is coming
People gotta watch a 28 win team 28 times on tv
These downvotes are gonna hurrrt lol
There’s zero chance we win 28 games or less unless Steph gets injured and sits out the whole season.
Top 4 players (Luka)
You have Jokic over Giannis?
The league really doesn’t rate KD.
It would seem like the NBA’s goal is to make as much money as possible. I’m shocked.
The star power in this league is so cooked lmao
Boo. Less Walt Frazier is never a good thing.
The one bad thing about this
Less Clyde more Reggie 😒
Reggie is on my mt. rushmore of worst commentators to listen to
No pun intended!
Welcome to your Kodak moment
Put Doris Burke up there
Look at this! Look at this!
Can Reggie be forced to watch us raise the banner? That would make it much better.
Might be the closest him and the entire Pacers org get to sniffing a banner
Honestly we might get more of him. He’s been taking trips and games off but if the msg schedule is a bit more spread out he might take off less
Clyde is on a games restriction already so he probably does the same number as always.
health?
He’s 81. Just the travel would be exhausting.
He wont miss a game in Miami though lol
fair. Sad to hear, Clyde is a legend
Id rather less Clyde now and more overall than the alternative
same
James Dolan’s biggest crime against humanity is that he wasted the best booth in the nba on an awful team for twenty years
He saves up all his traveling to go to St. Croix
I think the NBA should somehow get a national broadcast for some of the legendary commentators like Walt. The play by play guy in toronto. The guy in Charlotte. A fun homer is still fun, but these guys usually call it down the middle. This hit hard once Stacey King died. He was so great for Chicago and I think it would be cool to reward some of these guys with a national broadcast.
The NBA can be a bit campy. Like our halftime shows. And I think it’s a great thing. I think something like this would be neat.
Wolves with 27! Pretty good!
Wolves getting 27 is equivalent to the Lakers getting a special exception to broadcast 40 lol.
We had 30 last year. Ant sells.
Those 3 lost were from trading away Randle
/s
Funny enough, Brooklyn only gets 2 national TV games and one of them is when they come to Minnesota
ant fucking performs
Yessssir
I’m excited! Can’t wait to watch yall ball out.
Knicks ball is gonna be great too! East is looking really tough this year, some good matchups should be coming all season.
It’s honestly crazy how the league isn’t bending over backwards to feature LaMelo Ball. He’s such a clear candidate to be the face of the league, yet they aren’t even giving him top 5 national TV games.
Similar to the WNBA and Caitlin Clark.
Full list:
It’s cool to see this in list form, but seeing Peacock listed among over-the-air networks and one of, if not the, most common cable stations is kinda odd. Makes me feel like Matt Damon aging at the end of Saving Private Ryan
Peacock games are also carried on the new NBCSN, so it’s not completely out of line.
Side note: We should be calling Peacock “The Cock”
As in, Lakers On The Cock tonight fellas!
Pat McAfee liked that
It’s interesting how many games the Mavericks get when they’re not going to be particularly good. More than the Pistons, Rockets, Pacers, Cavs, Blazers, Magic, Raptors, Jazz, Suns, Hawks. I wouldn’t be surprised if every one of those teams was better than the Mavs next season
I assume a huge driving factor is to get Cooper in front of more eyes by giving the Mavs a lot of national games
I’m disappointed by how little the Wizards are getting. They may not be good this year but they have AD, Tray and the #1 overall pick. I’d like to see more of them and how they look.
Yeah, I expected the Pistons to be somewhere around the bottom of the top 10, but 13th is a bit of a bummer.
They’re going to be better than you think.
Grizzlies having 0 games on traditional TV sucks.
Hey we got 2! 💪🏽
Same. Really surprised the Bulls are so low.
Looks fair but I think wiz should have a few more games at the beginning of the season while everyone is healthy lol
I wish league pass adjusted the price based on this.
I may start the season without to see how it goes.
Seems like Kawhi isn’t going to go to Toronto
2 games lmao we got no motion anymore
Zion’s PR fall off is crazy considering he’s still good and actually played last year.
They had the Pelicans playing on ring night 2019 and Zion wasn’t even in uniform. How far they’ve fallen
On the other hand, 62 games of Zion led the Pelicans to 26 wins.
one too many
the kangz and pelicans have two games. the wizards have six.
Wizards are on the come up. Kings and Pels are not.
How many times have we heard this. I hope they finally get out of this hole but who knows
I don’t think anyone has considered the Wizards “on the come up” for at least half a decade until now
having the no1 pick does help
Pelicans have two and their back to back. Two in a week and nothing else all season.
And it’s the games against the Spurs, taking place in Paris and then Manchester
The Wiz have 2 more NBC games than last year
I think we should have had more than six, but if we start well maybe they’ll add us to some more primetime games later in the season
We play the Spurs back to back and that’s all ours lol.
That many national games for the Wizards is gonna be a mistake. They’re gonna want to put more
Nets, Grizzlies, Bucks, Pelicans, and Kings in the Crap Club with 2 games. Shocking one to me is the Bulls with only 3 games considering they’re a big market team
Bulls are a small big market. They take up zero media attention and have been largely irrelevant for a quarter century. It’s not like people love laughing at them like they did for the Knicks before 2020, it’s just nobody cares about them. I wish they were good
Hopefully, most of these Spurs games aren’t on ESPN.
8 of them from what I counted. If I don’t have to listen to RJ biased commentary I’ll be happy.
Champs, runners up, LeBron’s team, one of the most winningest franchise in the sport and the odds on favorite for a title. NBA got it right.
Yeah but did we really need 4 prime time Lakers vs warriors games?
Warriors vs Lakers games are usually fire
The double overtime in 2024 is a modern classic
As a League pass user I am now all in on not having televised games. The in arena broadcasts are much more fun
We get giannis and I still can’t find games lol
We went from 5 to 25 I take that as a win
Sucks tho I’m outta state Im only getting 25 games lol
Damn to the seas it is my heat brother lol
I’m confused. If you’re out of state it’s way easier to get games through League Pass.
Ya, what?? not being on national TV and being out of state from the team you watch makes it the cheapest possible cause all you need is LP
Literally no excuse lol. Not these days.
How miserable it must be for you
They call us spoiled for a reason
LMAO
I want 0 nationally televised games, but that’s because the non-national games are on local antenna
Tahts fine.
Local games are free this year and more local games just means more of the best broadcast duo in the biz.
Celtics road schedule is brutal. 11 of their first 18 are on the road, a 6 game road trip through the new year, and they close out the season with 8 out of 11 on the road
Meanwhile a team like the Thunder has a single road trip longer than 3 games, and it includes 2 game in a row in Portland with 0 travel.
Who balanced these schedules lol
Blazers have 12 of their first 17 on the road and 14 back to backs, multiple of them coming off road trips. I agree, this schedule blows.
The common denominator in your examples is both of those teams are on a coast
That’s rough, Blazers always one of the most traveled teams too
The Celtics will go even and we’ll get to hear about how “Jaylen Brown was the reason they won”. I’m calling it right now man it’s so obvious.
Also didn’t the Thunder have the easiest first 30 games of all time last season lol.
Perk of being in the middle of the country maybe? Mavs have one 5 game road trip (that includes OKC/SAS and LAC/LAL), but outside of that no more than 3 consecutive road games.
Makes sense to me. If an East coast team is going to play West coast teams, might as well try and lump all the games together to reduce flying back and forth.
Celtics usually get a few crazy long road trips because of the Bruins, Beanpot, and Disney on Ice of all things.
We’re gonna blow your backs out this year. You made us your bitch for TOOOO LONG
If you wouldve told me during that 2022 season that we’d be tied for the most televised team in the league in less than 4 years I never would’ve believed you.
We had just cut our guard of the future (Primo), Lonnie had busted, and Pop was getting older.
All of our faith was in Keldon, Devin, and the 2022 first rounders(Sochan, Branham, and Blake Wesley😭) as we tanked to oblivion for a 14% chance at salvation.
Dejounte, Derrick, thank you. Yall made this possible ✌️ 🕊️
Makes sense, give the people who they want to watch
Wolves with 27? 1 less than last season? Interesting
Warriors are so fuckin washed 🥲
They have 28 national games, that’s washed?
And this is without their 2nd best player for a big chunk of the season.
They’ve always had the most games despite being mediocre
You’re not wrong, name another 9 seed from the previous year getting 28 national TV games.
I know it’s because of markets and money blah blah blah, but Lakers with more than the Thunder is annoying
Lost LeBron but still gotta max out national TV games coz Lakers (yes I know Luka is still a big draw).
I don’t mind certain teams getting a lot of nationally televised game but at least make it so those teams get some against teams that don’t have as many.
Like Lakers Warriors don’t need 4 prime time games especially since it’s not a potential LeBron vs Steph anymore
I’ve seen this sentiment a few times in this thread and it really feels like everyone forgot the Lakers have Luka Doncic.
How do nationally televised games affect local TV deals? Does the company with the local deal get money back from the team for these games?
Each national broadcaster gets a chunk of games by priority (who paid the most) and then work backwards. It’s not really “getting money back”, the local broadcasters essentially get whatever is left after the big guys take their cuts.
Right, but the Lakers have a 20 yr local deal with Time Warner for $3 billion, so what number of games per season is that figure based on?
I’m guessing the value of the deal as advertised is based on an estimate. The real deal is based on a payout per-game, and potentially more detailed for things like day of week, specific days, time of day, etc. There are established parameters for how the deal is priced.
Or it was just an [$x] per season number with an escalator over time and the amount was flat whether Time Warner got 45 games or 60 games.
We have to play two overseas games just to get nationally televised.
The Heat going from 5 last year to 26 shows that Heat needed at least one Superstar to get back on the horse
I wish the 76ers had 0 nationally televised games but that’s only because I like the local broadcast team.
I yearn for 2006 when we had no national tv games and I got to listen to Tommy Heinsohn fall in love with Delonte West
Wow, the disrespect to the Bucks
Giannis’s Return is on a streamer only viewing. If you don’t have Prime you can’t watch it in Wisconsin
I just wanna hear Mike and Clyde
Only 3? Not surprised to be honest. I hope French TV will show more games either on BeIN Sports or Prime.
Please god give us less. I don’t want to see Doris Burke
Why do I even buy league pass
Raptors: 82
That means more games without Mike and Clyde :(
Kind of unfortunate I have to look at this and know I probably can’t watch over half the national games bc ESPN for a month is like 4x what leaguepass costs
Yeah I’m gonna have to set sail this year way more than last
Yuck
hey what about the grizz?! /s
Ours are all against those various top teams except for Memphis (Ja!) and the Clippers, idk who that one is for
Pelicans ownership did some shitty things and Papa Legba cursed them. Zion was getting nationally televised games in college
The less that I have to listen to the Sixers’ tv announcers, the better
What if I don’t like any of those teams? I guess the Spurs are ok.
The lakers over thunder is interesting.
As long as I don’t have to listen to Austin Rivers anymore…
19 for the pistons. For shame.
Crazy every team is spread over 4 different services
Lakers?
Underestimating the 2026-27 NBA Champion Washington Wizards I see
Showtime Sixers
How did the Pelicans get two national televised games?
I hate that you need 4-5 different subscriptions to watch your teams games. It is like they are daring you to take sail on the seas. Aaaaarrrrg, me matey.
Seems reasonable to me
30 Thunder games!? Kill me now.
That’s 30 games we don’t have to listen to the second worst broadcast team in the league (shoutout to golden state).
As a neutral, I take this as a win.
Devin Booker is going to be paid almost 70 million dollars in the last year of his contract and he is in the bottom half for televised games, what a fraudulent superstar
So how many hours of SGA at the free throw line does 30 games equal?
Why do people fucking hate Atlanta
Damn, NBA has inadvertently released the script for the conference finals. Lakers will eliminate Thunder in a stunning upset to go to the WCF. NBA has not decided which of the 4 teams wins it all though, that’s still being analyzed
Thunder getting fewer than the Great White Hope Lakers and a post-sweep Sixers just cause of Bron is crazy work
Is there an easy way to find the delta behind number of nationally televised game last year to this year? Was wondering who lost the most games.
Every Lakers game is going to be the Lakers trailing whoever 130-128 with Luka attempting a crazy game winning three pointer attempt
Yeah.
The top and/or most interesting teams get the most nationally televised games.
I am a little surprised the Lakers are maxed out because they are a wildly lesser draw compared to last season, but they are the Lakers. They have Luka.
And…..that second game of the double header has to happen.
You’re surprised the most popular team in the league is getting a lot of nationally televised games?
Lakers at 34? Meh.
Awesome to see my LA Trumps, I mean Kushners, I mean Lakers, I mean fuck my life, get top billing
Of course we maxed out, we’re the champs
I know it’s bcause they are the Lakers…but come on. 34 games for a non contender is crazy.
No one wants to watch Luka whine for 34 games besides Laker fans.