The NBA Schedule Makers Really Missed the Mark With the Raptors

The Toronto Raptors are going into the season with a lot of mystery, especially surrounding the possible Kawhi Leonard trade with the Los Angeles Clippers.

The deal has yet to be confirmed due to an investigation by the NBA into alleged salary cap circumvention from the Clippers. The Raptors play the Clippers twice during the regular season on Nov. 2 and Jan. 1, but neither game will be played in front of a national audience.

Date	Location
Nov. 2	Intuit Dome, Inglewood, CA
Jan. 1	Scotiabank Arena, Toronto, ON

Raptors vs. Clippers Snubbed of National TV Treatment

Los Angeles Clippers guard Bennedict Mathurin reacts after scoring a basket and drawing the foul against the Toronto Raptors. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The first meeting between the two teams will take place in the first two weeks of the regular season, on a night when every team in the league is in action. The only nationally televised game is the Knicks' first matchup, when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder visit Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers at Rocket Arena.

The league could have put a second West Coast game, and the Raptors and Clippers would have made perfect sense. Not even the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers are getting that national TV treatment for this day.

Every NBA team's national TV / streaming games in 2026-27 ⬇️

LeBron and Wemby get bumped up to the max 34 games, joining the Knicks and Lakers pic.twitter.com/yLHU08k1t1
— Lev Akabas (@LevAkabas) August 13, 2026

This is an intriguing matchup with one of the league's biggest stars as the focal point, and it could be a potential rivalry for years to come. Even on New Year's Day, when there are six games on the schedule, none of them are going to be nationally televised.

Part of that has to do with the College Football Playoff dominating the holiday, but the league could have put this game on a different day so that it could be broadcast in front of a larger audience.

Ultimately, this investigation should have been over by now, which would have given the league a chance to schedule accordingly. The NBA has a chance to flex games in and out of specific time slots, just not on the specific day. The league has to have advanced notice to switch a national TV appointment, but that won't change so early in the season.

When the networks had the chance to pick and choose which games they would broadcast, the Raptors simply weren't as intriguing as other teams. Out of the 30 teams in the NBA, 20 have more national TV games than the Raptors, which shouldn't be the case if the league only cared about how well they performed in the playoffs.

The Raptors were one of the last 10 teams standing in the playoffs this past season, but that isn't necessarily reflected in the national TV schedule. The uncertainty of the Leonard trade hurt their chances of being pulled into primetime because the league would rather have something a little bit more stable, given that it has to be decided so far in advance.

That could happen for Toronto and Los Angeles on the first meeting at the Intuit Dome. It's looking like neither meeting will have a larger audience, which is a missed opportunity for the NBA.

If the trade had been completed by now, it's possible that the game could have been properly scheduled at a time that could have been fixed for the national audience to tune in. However, that isn't the case.

The league could flex some Raptors games later in the year if they prove to be a big draw for the league, but they will have to earn that respect because it hasn't been given to them.

Sign up for our free newsletter, which will bring all Toronto Raptors On SI stories every weekday to your email.

Add us as a preferred source on Google