The NBA schedule is finally coming out this week.
The league announced that the full schedule will be unveiled Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. The league will join its television partners, NBC and ABC, to unveil the opening night schedule, Christmas schedule and other marquee games on Tuesday morning on Today and Good Morning America.
The Orlando Magic are not expecting to get any games announced on Tuesday morning. They are not a team that will be featured a ton on national TV.
The Magic are not one of the featured teams in the league. And while Orlando should still get a healthy amount of national TV games -- probably around 10 -- the team is simply not a featured team in the grand story of the NBA.
So while we should expect an Oklahoma City Thunder-San Antonio Spurs battle or a New York Knicks-Philadelphia 76ers battle to get announced for opening night, Orlando Magic fans will have to wait to hear when their team will play.
The Magic are still guaranteed to get their 82 games. And everyone is eager to see who the Orlando Magic will open their season with -- so long as it is not the Miami Heat, whom the Magic have opened their season against eight times, including the last two seasons.
The start of the season can be really important. And this is about getting off on the right foot.
Orlando opened last season with three straight home games for the first time -- against manageable opponents, on paper at least. Everyone believed it would help the team get off to a good start and race to the top of the Eastern Conference.
Instead, the Orlando Magic tripped out of the gates, defeating the Miami Heat before falling ot the Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks. The losses were the first sign of trouble for the team in the season.
With a new coach, the Magic might prefer a home-heavy start and some manageable opponents.
But that is not in Orlando's control. The Magic will have to see what the NBA gives them.
What is the ideal start for the Magic then? Who should they be hoping to open with. And what can they expect to start the season?
What history tells us
There is never really any rhyme or reason for when the NBA assigns who starts at home and who starts on the road. But in the long arc of history, it usually evens out.
In 37 years of Orlando Magic history, they have opened at home in 26 seasons, that included six straight years with a home opening game from the 2016-20 seasons. That means they started on the road 11 times in franchise history.
There is some catching up to do. And so some more road openers appears likely to for that balance.
Since the 2021 season, the Magic have opened at home three times against three road openers. Perhaps another road opener is on the horizon then.
When the Magic have opened on the road, they have generally stayed close to home.
Of those 11 road openers, the Magic played what are now Southeast Division opponents in five of them. The Heat accounted for only two of them, including the 2025 opener in Miami.
The Orlando Magic's most frequent opening night opponent that was not the Miami Heat has been the Washington Wizards, whom the Magic have opened against five times. But the Magic have not opened with the Wizards since 2016.
The Magic have opened with Western Conference opponents five times. The last was in 2024 when the Orlando Magic opened at home against the Houston Rockets. Their last road Western Conference opener was in 2022 against the San Antonio Spurs.
The first Western Conference opener came in 2012 for the lockout-shortened seaosn's Christmas opener against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
That was the last time the Magic opened a season on national TV. And that is typically the reason the Orlando Magic would open too far from home -- they had a national TV opener against the New York Knicks back in 2003, for instance. Either that or the team starts the year with a long road trip or a series of road games.
The last road opener that was outside the Southeast Division came in 2023 for Paolo Banchero's debut game against the Detroit Pistons. That was part of a four road games in the first five start to the season. But the Orlando Magic visited Atlanta before playing their home opener against the Boston Celtics.
The Magic lost all five of those games as part of a frustrateing 5-20 start to that season.
The likely opponents
It should be clear that the odds are in favor of the Orlando Magic opening their season against a Southeast Division opponent.
It also seems likely that the Magic will open on the road.
But the NBA schedule is a puzzle. And the Magic might be dependent on what is happening around them to some extent.
The NBA is less interested in storyline reasons for opponents who are not on national TV. But it feels like a good bet that the NBA will want to feature Giannis Antetokounmpo's Miami Heat debut on their national TV schedule. It would not shock me if a game between a team like the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers is announced for the first Wednesday of the NBA season.
That could mean the Magic either get a short trip -- to Atlanta, Charlotte or Washington, perhaps, or maybe even an opening night reunion with Jamahl Mosley and the New Orleans Pelicans for a short Western Conference trip -- to open their season before returning home to host whomever the Heat open their season with.
Or it could mean the Magic get a home game to open the season with two straight home games, catching the Heat's opponent heading back north.
There would be some poetry to the Magic opening their season in Charlotte, if the NBA wants a narrative. The Orlando Magic blew out the Charlotte Hornets to end their dream season in the Play-In Tournamnt last year.
And it is a short enough trip that the Magic -- or Hornets -- could return home quickly for their home opener depending who is on the road.
Then again, there are so many possibilities. And the schedule can be random. Especially to start the season.
The most important thing is that the Magic take advantage of their early schedule. They need to get off to a good start and build confidence. That is something they struggled to do last year and in 2025, not really finding their footing until the seven-game win streak in November, about 15 games into the season.
If Orlando wants to be in the race for homecourt advantage, it will start early. The Magic do not want to play behind.
Everyone will be waiting to see who is up first in this 82-game journey ahead.
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