{"id":798995,"date":"2026-07-29T21:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/798995\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T21:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:24:16","slug":"why-suns-lakers-preseason-game-wont-happen-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/798995\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Suns-Lakers preseason game won\u2019t happen in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>However, Page isn\u2019t against the idea of the Suns playing a preseason game in Palm Desert against a team outside of the Lakers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe could certainly look at it,\u201d Page said. \u201cWe&#8217;re not opposed to that. Just the Lakers\u2019 proximity, being we&#8217;re two hours from L.A. There&#8217;s just so many people that are Lakers fans. It made the most sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Phoenix is just a 3\u00bd-hour drive to Palm Springs. The franchise also has a preseason history there before its recent contests against the Lakers.<\/p>\n<p>The Suns played preseason games three straight years (2008-10) at Indian Wells Tennis Garden. The outdoor facility was transformed into a basketball oasis that crammed in 16,000 fans for the 2008 game between the Suns and Nuggets.<\/p>\n<p>The next year, Phoenix played the Warriors, who had this skinny rookie named Stephen Curry, now a four-time NBA champion and recognized as the greatest shooter ever.<\/p>\n<p>The Suns closed out that three-year run against the Dallas Mavericks as the home team.<\/p>\n<p>Phoenix has a preseason game this year Oct. 7 at the Chicago Bulls and two against San Antonio on Oct. 10 in Phoenix and Oct. 14 in San Antonio.<\/p>\n<p>The Suns have yet to announce their preseason schedule.<\/p>\n<p>They played their first preseason game last year on Oct. 3.<\/p>\n<p>A Detroit Pistons-Suns matchup this year in Michigan would be ideal before the Bulls game. Suns team owner Mat Ishbia is a Michigan State graduate who was a walk-on on the Spartans&#8217; 2000 national championship team.<\/p>\n<p>                    Get in the game with our Prep Sports Newsletter<\/p>\n<p class=\"email-desc\">Sent weekly directly to your inbox!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, Page isn\u2019t against the idea of the Suns playing a preseason game in Palm Desert against a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[382,7,94880,150,736,1407,6,73317,1615,2065,472,1542,24240,78486],"class_list":["post-798995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-arizona","tag-basketball","tag-basketball-leagues","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-men","tag-national-basketball-association","tag-nba","tag-nba-controversies","tag-nba-seasons","tag-phoenix","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-relocated-nba-teams","tag-seasons-in-american-basketball","tag-sports-club-and-team-relocations"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117005376773683543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}