The NBA calendar is reaching another important benchmark en route to the start of a brand-new season. That's right— it's media day season.
Each year every NBA team holds a full media day that features extensive press conferences from most members of the organization, from the superstars to the coaches to the general managers. It's an opportunity for every team to preview the upcoming season and officially turn the page on the long offseason. It's also an indicator to fans everywhere that it's time to get excited for the upcoming season, and it is fast approaching.
Beyond even all that, media days annually provide plenty of soundbites, bits of breaking news, and all of the other fun and interesting things that occur when athletes are put in front of a microphone. There will be plenty of headlines created by every media day. It's the first big wave of news since free agency and you don't have to be a passionate fan of just one team to find it all intruiging.
To help everyone prepare for the unofficial start of the new NBA year, let's dig into what the overall schedule looks like for media days around the league.
What Are NBA Media Days?
NBA media days are an opportunity for fans, players, and reporters alike to really get ready for the upcoming season. But media days are more than that for NBA teams.
Media days also represent the earliest possible date that teams can have veteran players report to training camp. Vets are allowed to show up earlier, of course, and rookie minicamps will have taken place ealier in the year. But the first day everybody is allowed to report in an official capacity is also media day.
So in essence, media day really is the start of the new year for all players around the league. Whatever they got up to in the offseason has to be wrapped up by media day. That's when eyes are fully pointed to the future and the new year.
In addition to all that consequential stuff it's also when teams take pictures of everybody in their new uniforms. It's also when teams usually film JumboTron content for the home crowd. Hence why Jimmy Butler used to look so silly all season long with the Heat— he dressed up funny for media day.
NBA Media Day Schedule 2025
The NBA media day schedule for the 2025-26 season can be easily separated into two categories: teams that have international preseason games scheduled, and the teams that do not.
The teams that do have international preseason games scheduled were permitted to hold their media days (ergo, start training camp) about a week before everybody else. Below you'll find the media day schedule for those teams.
Every other team will play normal preseason games. Which means that every other team's media day will be held on Monday, September 29 with no exceptions.
What to Expect From NBA Media Days
Fans shouldn't expect to hear much in the way of truly significant information at NBA media days. The press conferences are more catch-up opportunities to ask players what they did over the summer and what they are looking forward to in the upcoming season.
But there's plenty to glean from those comments. How did the NBA's superstars try to address areas of weakness over their offseason? How will new coaches employ their top players? How have injured players recovered since getting hurt last year and what was their rehab like? What they say doesn't matter as much as what happens on the court but it is nevertheless intruiging to hear before the games are played.
Above all media day will always give fans a few funny soundbites per team. NBA organizations are chock-full of entertaining personalities and media days are among the lowest stake moments that players will be in front of a microphone. So they usually end up enjoying themselves to some degree.
More NBA on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as NBA Media Day Schedule: When Every Team Will Host Opening Press Conferences.
