NBA releases 2026-27 schedule, with Pelicans and Spurs set for the season’s biggest travel burdens while Knicks travel the least

The NBA has released its 2026-27 regular-season schedule, and the early headline is travel. According to Yahoo Sports’ review of the slate, the New Orleans Pelicans and San Antonio Spurs are set to fly the most miles during the season, a disparity that stems in part from the inclusion of games overseas. The New York Knicks, by contrast, are expected to travel the least across the full schedule.

Overseas games change more than just a headline. They typically add long-haul flights and time-zone adjustments, stretching both the logistical and physiological demands of a season. For teams such as the Pelicans and Spurs, those dates can also compress rest windows and make preparation for both the “before” and “after” home stands more consequential than usual.

The schedule review also underscores how travel patterns vary sharply across the league. While every team plays opponents across multiple regions, geography still matters: teams in the East can spend more time inside that conference’s footprint and avoid certain cross-country stretches, while others accumulate more long-distance trips as the calendar moves between divisions and conferences.

For the Western Conference, the travel figure is a practical, day-to-day consideration. The league does not structure the season around mileage, but travel volume can affect how quickly players recover between practices, film sessions, and games. Coaches generally manage load through rotations and practice intensity, and a schedule that features repeated long-distance travel can force those decisions earlier in the season, not just deep into it.

For New York, the “least travel” note offers a potential advantage in baseline rhythm. Even without assuming any single advantage will decide outcomes, fewer miles generally means fewer extended travel days, which can keep a team’s routine closer to home. That can be especially relevant in the middle parts of the schedule, where consistency and continuity often matter most.

It remains important to separate travel from results. Mileage totals do not capture everything, including travel clustering, lengths of road trips, game start times, and how frequently a team plays back-to-backs. Still, the league-wide emphasis on distance makes a concrete point: this season’s calendar will not challenge all teams the same way.

As teams enter the summer and offseason planning period around training camp, the schedule’s shape is now part of the chessboard. The next step is watching how each franchise manages the overseas dates and how those trips flow into nearby stretches of home games and road trips, particularly for teams with the highest mileage outlook.