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NBA schedule release season is upon us, and the dominoes are beginning to fall. With the Atlanta Hawks already reportedly being matched up with the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden on Christmas Day, we now have a second national TV game nailed down. The Hawks will host the Dallas Mavericks on TNT on Thursday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 pm ET.
The first four days of the season will feature eight national television games. Those games will showcase:
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) August 17, 2021
• 12 different teams
• The last eight players to win the Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award
• Three rematches from last season’s playoffs. pic.twitter.com/B6ccuTTTb5
This matchup obviously centers around Trae Young and Luka Dončić, whom both inked max-contract extensions with their respective franchises this offseason. Young and Dončić were notoriously traded for each other on the night of the 2018 NBA Draft, with Dallas moving up two spots for the rights to Dončić in exchange for the rights to Young and a 2019 protected first-round pick, which ultimately became Cam Reddish.
Both Young and Dončić have gotten off to historic starts to their NBA careers, each reaching milestones that few or in some cases no players have reached before. Young became the first player to score 45 points and record double-digit assists in a conference finals game this past postseason, while Dončić’s postseason performances each of the past two seasons have been nothing short of spectacular in their own right.
Stay tuned as the rest of the schedule is set to be released by the end of the week.