The showdowns and reunions highlighting the NBA’s 2026-27 season

After offseason moves to new teams, Jaylen Brown and Giannis Antetokounmpo will return to their former cities for the first time at the season’s midway point.

The NBA’s offseason was defined by team-switching superstars — which meant that when the league released its schedule Thursday, it was highlighted by those stars’ returns to the cities that once cheered for them.

During the 2026-27 season, Giannis Antetokounmpo will return to Milwaukee following a yearslong drama concerning whether he wanted to stay or leave. Jaylen Brown will play in Boston less than three years removed from bringing the Celtics an NBA championship. And Brown’s new Philadelphia teammate, LeBron James, will revisit Los Angeles after eight years as a Laker.

Whether they will be received warmly or not won’t be known until tipoff. But fans already know now when matchups like that, and other highly anticipated games, will be played.

Only two years after Brown won NBA Finals MVP for Boston, the Celtics traded him to division rival Philadelphia in a move interpreted as the Celtics’ choosing Brown’s former running mate, Jayson Tatum, over him. Brown later said he “threw my phone across the room” after he heard he was being dealt. Rather than hold the juicy reunion early in the season, the league dated his Boston return for Jan. 21 (Prime Video). That game is one of four between the 76ers and the Celtics this season; the others are on Nov. 10 (Prime Video), Feb. 7 (NBC/Peacock) and March 7 (ABC).

Antetokounmpo’s breakup with Milwaukee, the team that drafted him and with which he won a championship in 2021, was long. The NBA didn’t rush his return to Milwaukee, either. Antetokounmpo’s Miami Heat first visit the Bucks on Jan. 28, near the midway point of the season, when it will be easier to gauge how successful his departure for Miami has gone (Prime Video).