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LeBron's first regular-season game for the Sixers is Knicks ring night on October 20, and he is 27 wins from passing Kareem
Opening night of the 2026-27 NBA season sends Philadelphia to Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, October 20, at 7 p.m. ET. The Knicks receive their first championship rings since 1973, and LeBron James plays his first regular-season game for the 76ers. What is left for him to chase in his 24th season is plain subtraction: 27 wins to pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 29 steals to pass Gary Payton and a little over 530 assists to pass Chris Paul.
Clinch Desk · Fri, Sep 25
The first night of the 2026-27 NBA season puts two stories on one court. Under the schedule the league released on August 13, opening night, Tuesday, October 20, is a tripleheader on NBC and Peacock: Boston at Detroit at 3 p.m. ET, Philadelphia at New York at 7 p.m. and Oklahoma City at San Antonio at 9:30 p.m. The middle game is at Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks receive championship rings before tip-off, their first since 1973. It is also LeBron James's first regular-season game for the 76ers. ESPN billed it as both New York's ring night and James's Philadelphia debut. In Korea the three games start at 4 a.m., 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday the 21st. Philadelphia's preseason opens earlier, at home against the Knicks on October 5 (NBC Sports Philadelphia, August 17).
The rings were settled in June. According to NBA.com, the Knicks beat San Antonio 4-1 in the Finals and closed the series out 94-90 in Game 5 in San Antonio, finishing the playoffs 16-3. Jalen Brunson won the Bill Russell Trophy as Finals MVP. His 45 points in Game 5, 15 of them in the fourth quarter, set a Knicks record for a Finals game, and he averaged 32.6 points over the series. New York had already beaten the Spurs in the NBA Cup final in December, which made it the first team to win the Cup and the title in the same season. It was the eighth season in a row with a different champion.
James announced his move to Philadelphia himself on Friday, July 24, and the club confirmed the signing on Monday, July 27. ESPN reported the terms as two years and $8 million with a player option, after a season in which he earned close to $53 million with the Lakers. Philadelphia is his fourth franchise, after Cleveland, Miami and the Lakers. Earlier that month, on July 6, the 76ers had completed a trade for Jaylen Brown, sending Paul George, two first-round picks and two second-round picks to Boston.
This is James's 24th NBA season, which extends a record he already holds. He shared the mark of 22 seasons with Vince Carter until he played the first game of his 23rd on November 18, 2025. He is 41 and turns 42 on December 30. He also holds the record for regular-season games: NBA.com reported that his 1,612th game, at Orlando last March, took him past Robert Parish's 1,611. Basketball-Reference lists his career totals after 2025-26 at 1,622 games and 43,440 points, and the points are already the most in league history.
The records he does not yet hold come down to subtraction. Sports Illustrated's count on September 1 put his regular-season wins at 1,048. The record is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 1,074, so 26 more wins would tie it and 27 would break it. He has 2,417 steals, 28 behind Gary Payton's 2,445 in fifth place: 28 more would tie Payton and 29 would pass him. His assists stand at 12,016. Chris Paul's career total, second all-time, is 12,551 in SI's count and 12,552 on Basketball-Reference, so the gap is given here only as a little over 530. This piece does not say in which game any of these will fall. The remainder is arithmetic, and the games set the pace at which it shrinks.
The same subtraction works for other veterans. Kevin Durant has 32,597 career points on Basketball-Reference, and NBA.com pointed out on September 3 that he is 1,047 short of passing Kobe Bryant's 33,643 for fourth all-time. Stephen Curry has 4,248 career three-pointers by Basketball-Reference's count, 752 short of 5,000.
The schedule also sends James back to his old teams. His first game in Cleveland as a 76er is on November 6 at 7:30 p.m. ET, 9:30 a.m. on November 7 in Korea. On Christmas Day Philadelphia plays at the Lakers at 5 p.m. ET, 7 a.m. on the 26th in Korea, on the same day the Knicks host the Spurs at noon ET in a Finals rematch. Brown's first regular-season game back in Boston is on January 21. The Sixers' first trip to Boston comes sooner, for a preseason game on October 10.
Both teams' regular-season schedules are on the Philadelphia and New York team pages.
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