The question that has shadowed the Lakers all offseason finally has an answer. LeBron James will walk back into Crypto.com Arena on Friday, Dec. 25, when the Philadelphia 76ers visit the Lakers in the marquee window of the NBA’s five-game Christmas slate, which the league announced Tuesday morning as part of its staged rollout of the 2026-27 schedule.
The announcement also settled the other date Lakers fans had been tracking. Los Angeles will open its season at home against the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday, Oct. 21 — one night after the league’s opening slate tips off without the Lakers on it for the first time since the 2018-19 season. Our schedule release preview laid out the dates worth circling before the release, and the league put the biggest one exactly where the sport’s holiday tradition demanded.
LeBron James’ return now has a date
James signed with Philadelphia in July, ending an eight-year run in Los Angeles that produced the 2020 championship and reshaped the franchise’s modern history. Since the moment he chose the 76ers, the return game has been the single most anticipated date on the unreleased calendar — and rather than tucking it into a random midweek window, the league placed it at the center of its showcase holiday.
Luka, Austin and the Lakers will host LeBron and Philly on Christmas Day in LA, and open the season on Oct. 21 against Steph and Golden State: https://t.co/nYRUEnV62U
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) August 11, 2026
The matchup carries a deeper echo for the franchise. The last time the Lakers and 76ers shared a stage this big, Los Angeles was finishing off Philadelphia in five games in the 2001 NBA Finals.
A quarter century later, the roles have scrambled: The Lakers belong to Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves now, while Philadelphia spent the summer assembling a superteam around James and Jaylen Brown, the former Boston Celtics star the Sixers landed in the offseason’s other seismic move.
James has treated Christmas as a personal holiday stage for more than two decades. He has averaged 26.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 7.1 assists per game across 20 prior Christmas appearances, and Dec. 25 would mark his 21st if he suits up.
For a player entering his 24th season, every one of those numbers doubles as a reminder of how unusual it is that the league can still build its biggest regular-season day around him.
The full 2026 NBA Christmas Day schedule
The Lakers-Sixers game anchors a five-game slate that the NBA confirmed Tuesday, with every game airing on ABC and ESPN. All times Eastern:
Spurs at Knicks, 12 p.m.
Heat at Celtics, 2:30 p.m.
76ers at Lakers, 5 p.m.
Thunder at Timberwolves, 8 p.m.
Nuggets at Warriors, 10:30 p.m.
The day opens with the first meeting between New York and San Antonio since the Knicks closed out the Spurs in five games in June’s NBA Finals, the slate’s co-headliner alongside the Lakers game. The nightcap sends Denver to Golden State, while Giannis Antetokounmpo’s new-look Heat visit Boston and the Thunder meet LaMelo Ball and the Timberwolves in the evening window.
For Los Angeles, the assignment extends a streak that has quietly become one of the league’s most durable traditions. This will be the 28th consecutive season the Lakers appear on the Christmas schedule, while the franchise carries a 25-27 all-time record on the holiday.
The 5 p.m. Eastern window means a 2 p.m. tip in Los Angeles — an afternoon slot that should have Crypto.com Arena at full voice by the time James is introduced as a visitor for the first time.
The Lakers are off opening night for the first time in eight years
The morning’s other headline was an absence. When the league revealed its opening slate, the Lakers were not on it — a break from what had become an annual fixture of the James era in Los Angeles.
This is the first time the Lakers won’t play on opening night since 2018-19, James’ first season with the franchise. The Lakers have gone 1-6 on opening nights since 2019-20, which reframes the snub as something closer to a favor.
Instead of the league’s first night, the Lakers get the second — and a headliner of their own, hosting Stephen Curry and the Warriors on Oct. 21 in the game that will double as the true launch of the Doncic era’s second act.
The opening-night slate the Lakers vacated belongs partly to their former cornerstone. James and the 76ers open Oct. 20 at Madison Square Garden against the champion Knicks on the night New York raises its first banner in more than 50 years, before the Lakers tip off their own season the following evening.
The scheduling logic writes itself: The league gets James at the Garden for ring night, then hands Tuesday’s spotlight back to Los Angeles.
The Warriors opener also gives the season an immediate temperature check. Golden State closed out the Lakers’ 2025-26 opening night in Los Angeles, and the two franchises have spent the summer circling each other in the Western Conference’s second tier behind Oklahoma City and San Antonio.
A Doncic-Curry duel on national television, one night after James’ Philadelphia debut, is about as pointed a first 48 hours as the schedule-makers could have drawn for Lakers fans.
What comes next in the schedule release
Tuesday’s announcement covered only the headline dates, and the rest of the calendar arrives in stages this week. The league’s NBA Cup group schedule is set to be announced Wednesday, with the full 2026-27 schedule released in its entirety Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern.
That full release will answer the questions Tuesday left open: the Lakers’ national television load in the first post-LeBron season, the timing of Doncic’s two return trips to Dallas, the shape of the longest road trips and how much rest the schedule-makers built around a roster whose ceiling depends on keeping Doncic healthy into the spring. The team’s exhibition calendar is already locked, with a five-game slate that opens Oct. 5 in Sacramento.
The waiting, at least on the date that mattered most, is over. The Lakers open with Curry on Oct. 21, spend two months building toward the holiday and then host the most emotionally loaded regular-season game Crypto.com Arena has staged in years.
Christmas came early for the schedule-makers, and for Lakers fans the countdown to Dec. 25 starts now.
