Oklahoma City Thunder announce 2015-16 schedule

The Thunder have released their schedule for the 2015-16 NBA season. As expected, the Thunder will open the season against the Spurs in OKC on October 28th. The Thunder will also play a Christmas Day game against the Chicago Bulls in OKC.

National TV

The Thunder will have 24 of their 82 games broadcast on national TV. Only the Warriors and Cavaliers will appear on national TV more often than the Thunder, at 25 games a piece. Specifically, the Thunder will appear in 10 games on ESPN, 9 games on TNT, and 5 games on ABC. NBATV will air 9 Thunder games as well, but these aren't considered national TV appearances. As usual, Fox Sports Oklahoma will be the primary Thunder broadcaster. FSOK is committed to doing 71 games this year, with the remaining 11 games being national-TV only. All games will be broadcast on the Thunder radio network. The Thunder's number of games on national TV is exactly the same as last year, aside from a two game uptick in NBATV appearances.

Road Trips

Somehow, the Thunder managed to avoid a long road trip this season. The longest voyage away from OKC will only last four games, and that will only occur twice. All of the other road trips will be only one or two games long. The trade-off is that the Thunder will have no long home stands, either. The longest string of home games in the schedule is only four games long. In the past, the Thunder have had home stands and road trips last as long as six or seven games.

In terms of home-road balance, the Thunder will have it easy early in the season. Seven of the Thunder's nine November games will be at home. The Thunder will also have nine games at home compared to just six games on the road during the month of December. Conversely, the last six weeks of the NBA calendar will be very difficult. 15 of the Thunder's final 23 games will be on the road, including seven of their last nine.

Saturday-Sunday

The Thunder have always been very fond of Sunday home games, and that trend continues this season. In 2014-15, the Thunder had 11 home Sunday appearances. In 2015-16, the Thunder will clock in with 10. The two most obvious reasons for the Sunday home games are to utilize an earlier start time and avoid conflicts with college football. As such, the Thunder's three Saturday home games this season will occur after college football has already ended.

Who and When

The toughest stretch of an NBA schedule has always been the dreaded four games in five nights. This season, the Thunder will not play any of those. Accordingly, four game in five night stands will only occur 27 times this year, down from 70 last year. However, OKC will have to slug it out through 16 back to backs. 14 of those 16 back-to-backs will involve travel between cities. Overall, the league average of back to back games is 17.8 per team, down from 19.3 last season.

As is standard for NBA schedules, the Thunder will play opponents in their division four times, opponents in their conference three or four times, and opponents in the other conference two times. Basically, that means the only thing that changes from year-to-year is how many times the Thunder play the 10 out-of-division Western conference teams. This year, the Thunder will play the Warriors, Suns, Grizzlies, and Pelicans three times. The Clippers, Kings, Lakers, Rockets, Spurs, and Mavericks will all play the Thunder four times.

Full Schedule

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