The games played on NBA Opening Night represent just one of 82 for each team. And in pretty much every case, the roster a team starts a season with won't be the one it takes into the playoffs. If nothing else, there are usually at least some injuries.
In some cases, there will be trades or free agent additions that wind up mattering in April and May. The players in a team's starting lineup don't need to define its season. Yet opening night represents something of a declaration of intent.
The players who start your first game represent who you want your team to be at its best. When conditions are optimal, when everyone is hopefully healthy and you've had a whole offseason to prepare, who are the players you plan to lean on? You'll have 81 more opportunities to change your mind, but who a team wants to be can often tell us quite a bit about who that team winds up becoming.
So, with opening night less than a week away, let's look at some of the biggest starting lineup questions around the league. Which teams are still making up their minds, and what are the decisions they're weighing with the 2026-27 season now at hand? Before their preseason debut, the Spurs revealed that Dylan Harper would start alongside Stephon Castle and De'Aaron Fox.
Soon after, Fox became a late scratch due to hip and leg tightness. Fox missed the next handful of preseason games, but on Wednesday against the Suns, the Spurs finally got to try it. The results were successful on balance: they went plus-10 in 25 possessions together in a victory.
That success is an outlier compared to its performance a season ago. The Spurs used the trio together for only 54 regular-season and 83 postseason possessions. In those tiny samples, San Antonio got killed.
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