The National Basketball Association announced on Wednesday of plans having a regular season game played outside the United States or Canada in the 2025-26 season. According to footboom1.com, the Dallas Mavericks will play the Detroit Pistons on November 1 from Mexico City.
This will be the 15th regular season game played in Mexico City in NBA history. The last time the NBA came to Mexico City was this past season as the Miami Heat beat the Washington Wizards 118-98. This was the Heat’s most lopsided win in their first 10 games of the 2024-25 NBA season.
The game between the Pistons and Mavericks will have some degree of intrigue. That is because you can make the argument that the Pistons were the NBA franchise that overachieved the most in 2024-25, and the Mavericks were the team that underachieved the most.
No one expected the Pistons to do as well as they did. They bounced back from a 28-game losing streak in 2023-24, to having a record of 44 wins and 38 losses. It was a 30 win improvement from the previous season. J.B. Bickerstaff did an unbelievable job as the Pistons head coach in his first season in Detroit, and should have been the NBA coach of the year. Instead, it went to Kenny Atkinson of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Mavericks meanwhile went from reaching the NBA Finals in 2024, to missing the playoffs in 2025. One reason why the Mavericks missed the post season is because they traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. The future may look bright in Dallas. That is because they surprisingly won the NBA Lottery and will have the number one pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
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