Must Watch Games for 2017-18 Season

Rejoice NBA fans and start planning many road trips! The 2017-18 NBA schedule was officially released on Monday.

Some of these games are subject to change as the NBA has enabled all networks that carry their product to use flex scheduling to select the optimal games as the season heats up and playoff spots are up for grabs, but other than that we know exactly when the biggest match-ups of the season will go down in 2017-18.

Here are the 10 most must-watch games for the 2017-18 season:

Opening night, Oct. 17: Houston Rockets at Golden State Warriors (TNT)

March 28: Boston Celtics at Utah Jazz

Can you spot the major theme of these must-see games for the 2017-18 season? Players returning to their old stomping grounds. Some of these returns will be more cordial than others. I am assuming Jimmy Butler’s reception will be a little more cordial than Gordon Hayward or Paul George.

We also have the now seemingly annual Cavaliers and Warriors NBA Finals rematch, another five-star game on Christmas Day in the Thunder and Rockets, the first match-up between Markelle Fultz and Lonzo Ball, Chris Paul’s return to Los Angeles, Boogie Cousins return to Sac town and maybe the game with the most ridiculousness and media coverage of all, the Cavaliers and LeBron’s visit to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Everybody is attempting to read the tea leaves this summer and prophesize LeBron’s imminent arrival as the next great Los Angeles Lakers superstar and you can bet there will be plenty (many of them front runner and fair weather) Laker fans with LeBron jerseys and signs.

The biggest accomplishment of the entire scheduling process is the fact that the NBA has completely removed any four games in five night stretches for any NBA team. For some background on this accomplishment, there were 70 of these across the league just two seasons ago.

October 17 will be here before we know it!