Dallas Mavericks' opening night and Christmas day opponents confirmed

Who said we were in the dog days of August? Thursday evening, we received confirmation on opponents for the Dallas Mavericks before the NBA schedule officially dropped.

First, Per Marc Stein, Victor Wembanyama’s first official NBA game is tentatively slated for Oct. 25; Wembanyama’s Spurs will play host to Dallas and Luka Dončić.

The NBA wants the world to know Victor Wembanyama is a big deal, so what better way to introduce him to the league than by facing MVP front-runner Dončić? The number one overall pick in the 2023 NBA draft had his ups and downs in NBA Summer League but that’s to be expected. It will be fascinating to see how Wembanyama will be used in his debut let alone how Dallas will defend him. His hall of frame counter parts in Tim Duncan and David Robinson both had double doubles in their debut games against the Mavericks.

The previous season, without the highly anticipated talent Wembanyama, the Mavericks struggled against the San Antonio Spurs. Since their victory over the Washington Wizards to open the 2019–2020 NBA season, Dallas hasn’t won an opening game to start the NBA season and with a loaded Western Conference it’s in their best interest to start the season on a good note.

Additionally, according to to Shams Charania of The Athletic, here are the NBA’s Christmas Day games for the 2023-24 season.

What else could be better than an NBA rivalry rekindled on Christmas? The Mavericks will hope to play spoiler against Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns on Christmas Day. This will mark the forth consecutive year the Dallas Mavericks will be playing basketball on Christmas Day. Per Fanduel, Dallas has an all time record of 3-3 on Christmas Day games. The Phoenix Suns have a record of 12-8 all time on Christmas Day games.

May the rest of the regular season be as interesting as these two match ups!