NBA schedule release: Pelicans and Spurs will fly the most miles in 2026-27 season, Knicks will travel the least

The 2026-27 NBA schedule is here, with the league's 30 teams set to travel all across the United States to play hundreds of total games throughout the season.

The exact number of miles flown across 80 regular-season games varies from year to year, and the teams saddled with the most airborne time vary too. But this season, there are two clear losers, with the New Orleans Pelicans and San Antonio Spurs set to travel more miles than any other teams.

According to analysis from Claude AI, the Pelicans will top the league with an estimated 55,529 miles flown, while the Spurs are next with 53,947. It's a notable jump compared to the next nearest team — the Utah Jazz, who are set to fly 49,289.

The reason for the discrepancy is pretty simple: New Orleans and San Antonio are the two teams that have been designated to cross the pond in January, playing a game in Paris and another in Manchester. Those two round-trip flights alone will add about 9,500 miles each to each team's total; if you take those amounts out, both teams would sit closer to the middle of the table.

(Mileages are based on the estimated flight path between the two arenas, including an added 4% margin to account for outside factors like weather. The measurements assume that teams are flying directly between cities and do not count transport to and from the airport. Shorter bus trips as part of the total miles.)

Notably, the 15 Western Conference teams have to travel further than 14 of the 15 Eastern Conference teams, with every team in the West traveling above the league average. That's a trend that can be attributed to the size of the western half of the country, with NBA teams in the West significantly more spread out than on the cramped East Coast.

The sole Eastern exception is the Miami Heat, who will travel the sixth-most of any team in the NBA. Miami's furthest trip will be from South Florida to Los Angeles to play the Los Angeles Lakers, which they'll do ahead of a matchup in L.A. on Nov. 2.

The rest of the East, though, won't see nearly as much travel. The team with the fewest miles to travel is the New York Knicks, with the defending champions only set to travel 36,539 miles throughout the season. The Toronto Raptors are right behind them, with a difference of just over 300 miles between the two.

The longest flights in the league are largely (and logically) to the teams based the furthest west, such as the Portland Trail Blazers and the two Los Angeles teams. However, none of those three teams cracked the top five, likely due to some smart scheduling to reduce excessive travel.

Portland, for example, might have shaved off a few extra plane trips by playing smart on the road: The Trail Blazers boosted the league's two longest homestands with back-to-back games at the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Memphis Grizzlies. Notably, Portland is also estimated to have the fewest individual flights, with 51; the Lakers are right ahead of them with 52.

All of these dates and logistics are subject to change, and with the later games in the NBA Cup still to be established, those numbers could stretch even further before the end of the regular season. But a glimpse at the kind of intense travel that NBA players will be going through this year is a good thing to keep in mind.