There was a time when NBA preseason basketball felt like a traveling circus.
Before every game was available on your phone, before load management became a national talking point, and before October basketball became an exercise in checking whether your team’s new $200 million acquisition could still jump over a phone book, the preseason had a certain charm.
It was basketball’s annual dress rehearsal. And occasionally, it gave us something unforgettable.
Michael Jordan made his NBA debut in Peoria, Illinois, on October 5, 1984. The game was an exhibition against the Indiana Pacers, and Jordan scored 18 points in a 102-98 Chicago victory. The greatest basketball career of a generation began in a preseason game in central Illinois. Not exactly Madison Square Garden, but history has never been particularly concerned with the size of the building.
Then there were the preseason barnstorming games, when the NBA took its biggest stars to cities that didn’t have a professional basketball team. Fans in places like Lincoln, Nebraska, could watch Jordan play in person. And according to Bulls executive John Paxson, Jordan understood the assignment: if people paid to see him, he wanted to give them a show.
Imagine that concept today. A superstar actually playing in a preseason game because people bought tickets to watch him.
In 1992, the NBA preseason went BIG.
The Chicago Bulls and Denver Nuggets met in the Louisiana Superdome in a game that drew 31,278 fans, in what NBA.com identifies as a likely record for a preseason contest. Jordan scored 28 points in front of a crowd that came to see the reigning basketball phenomenon return to the site of his 1982 NCAA championship triumph with North Carolina.
Thirty-one thousand people. For an exhibition.
Of course, the real magic of preseason basketball wasn’t always about the legends. It was about possibility.
Every October, the first-round draft pick was going to save the franchise. The veteran acquired in a trade was going to provide the missing piece. The backup point guard who averaged 14 points in three exhibition games was absolutely going to become an All-Star.
And the team that went 6-1 in October? Forget the championship parade. Just start engraving the trophy.
Meanwhile, somewhere on the other side of the country, a future Hall of Famer was playing 11 minutes, scoring four points, and spending the rest of the night in a warm-up suit.
It didn’t matter. The games didn’t count, and that was precisely the point.
The preseason was a fresh start. It was new uniforms, unfamiliar teammates, first impressions, and the glorious delusion that this was finally going to be your year.
Even today, preseason can deliver a surreal sight. In October 2026, LeBron James made his preseason debut in a Philadelphia 76ers uniform, offering a reminder that even familiar superstars can give fans something entirely new to watch before the games begin to count.
So here’s to NBA preseason basketball.
To the forgotten exhibition games. To the rookies who looked like future superstars. To the veterans who were just happy to get through October without an injury. To the fans who paid regular-season prices to watch 18 minutes of their favorite player.
And to every basketball fan who ever watched a meaningless preseason game and thought:
This team is going all the way.
You were probably wrong.
But for a few weeks every fall, you had every reason to believe.
That’s the magic of October basketball.
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