The NBA started rolling out its 2026-27 calendar this week — key dates, opening week, and the Christmas slate, with the full 82-game schedule still to come. For the Wolves, that means we know exactly two games right now. Both are worth sitting with.
December 25: Thunder at Wolves, 7:00 PM Central (ABC/ESPN)
Christmas Day basketball is coming to Target Center for the first time in franchise history. Thirty-eight seasons, zero home Christmas games… until this one. Sit with that for a second: the marquee evening window, our building, against Oklahoma City.
The NBA does not hand out Christmas home games as participation trophies. The five-game slate is the league’s showcase shelf, and this year it’s stacked: a Knicks–Spurs Finals rematch at noon, Giannis making his Christmas debut in a Heat uniform in Boston, LeBron’s first trip back to LA as a 76er. And in the 7:00 Central slot, the league chose Ant and LaMelo against Shai and the Thunder.
https://x.com/NBA/status/2087147870352785570
The national broadcast will frame it as Shai’s show. Fine. A Target Center crowd getting its first-ever taste of Christmas basketball at home will make its own argument. Hang with the in-laws on the 26th instead. Layer up. This one’s ours.
October 21: Wolves at Heat, 6:30 PM Central (ESPN)
The season opener, one night after the league tips off with its NBC triple-header. It’s a national TV window, it’s on the road, and it answers the question every Wolves fan has been chewing on since the June 25 trade: what does the Edwards–Ball backcourt actually look like against real defense?
There will be no easing in. Miami now employs Giannis Antetokounmpo, the roster around Ant got remade in one violent afternoon of trade calls, and the first regular-season possessions of the LaMelo era will happen in front of a national audience in a building where the Wolves have historically gone to suffer. Perfect. If this experiment is what the front office believes it is, an opening statement on the road is exactly the right stage for it.
What we’re not doing yet
The full schedule. Every date, every back-to-back, every return game isn’t out yet. When it drops, we’ll break down the whole thing here: the stretches that will decide the seeding, the TV count, and yes, the nights Target Center gets emotional about the guys who left. Until then, we’re not going to pretend to analyze games that don’t have dates.
Two games are on the calendar. One says the league thinks we belong on its biggest day. The other tells us whether they’re right, starting night two.
Countdowns for both live on our Schedules page, all times Central, updated as the league fills in the rest.
