NBA Paris Game 2027: San Antonio Spurs vs New Orleans Pelicans, 14 January 2027

The NBA Paris Game 2027 is a regular-season meeting between the San Antonio Spurs and the New Orleans Pelicans at Accor Arena on Thursday 14 January 2027. The NBA's schedule puts tip-off at 2pm Eastern time, which is 8pm in Paris and 7pm in London, and the result counts in the standings like any other night of the season.

For most of the crowd, the main attraction will be Victor Wembanyama playing a home-region game in front of a Paris audience.

The league announced the game on 20 May 2026, alongside a second meeting of the same teams at Co-op Live in Manchester on Sunday 17 January 2027. So a UK group has a real choice: a Thursday night in Paris or a Sunday afternoon in Manchester. Our Manchester game page covers the English date. This one is about Paris, which has the larger basketball occasion of the two, even if it is the harder trip.

Victor Wembanyama and Paris

Wembanyama was born in Le Chesnay, just west of Paris, and came through at Nanterre 92, ASVEL and Metropolitans 92 before the Spurs drafted him first overall in 2023. Since then he has become the player the rest of the league plans around. The NBA named him the 2025-26 Defensive Player of the Year, and he was the first unanimous winner since the award began in 1982-83, taking all 100 first-place votes. He was 22.

Paris has seen what he can do in this building, and recently. In January 2025 the Spurs played the Indiana Pacers twice at Accor Arena. On 23 January Wembanyama had 30 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and five blocks in a 140-110 win. Two nights later the Pacers won 136-98. The same building produced two very different results in three days, a reminder that a showcase game is still a competitive one.

The Spurs' start to the 2026-27 season

The season began with a defeat. On 20 October 2026 San Antonio hosted Oklahoma City, the side they knocked out of last season's Western Conference Finals in a Game 7, and the Thunder won 116-104. Wembanyama made one basket from 13 shots and had four turnovers, by NBA.com's count, alongside six blocks. His own verdict was that he had been "indecisive" and "might be overthinking it".

"This game really doesn't mean that much," was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's view, per NBA.com. A single October result settles very little about how either team will look by mid-January, when the Spurs arrive in Paris almost three months into their season.

The supporting cast is already in place. De'Aaron Fox, a two-time All-Star, was San Antonio's most useful player in the opener with 14 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Head coach Mitch Johnson started him in a three-guard line-up with Stephon Castle, the 2024-25 Rookie of the Year, and Dylan Harper, the second pick in the 2025 draft. Last season this group beat the Thunder in that seven-game series before losing the 2026 NBA Finals to the New York Knicks. If June left you wanting a closer look, Paris is a train ride from London rather than a transatlantic flight.

The Pelicans side coming to Paris

New Orleans got going a night later and fared no better. Indiana took the fourth quarter 37-28 at the Smoothie King Center on 21 October 2026 and won 123-120, Crescent City Sports reported. Dejounte Murray, an All-Star in 2022, top-scored with 23 points, seven assists and three blocks, and Zion Williamson, a two-time All-Star, added 22 on 7 of 16 shooting. The two Pelicans picked for the 2026 Castrol Rising Stars game both played: Derik Queen posted a 10-point, 10-rebound double-double off the bench, and Jeremiah Fears scored 8.

Rosters shift during an NBA season and January is nearly three months away, so read every name here as the squad in October 2026, not a promise of who steps on the floor.

Experience is lopsided, too. These two European dates are the Pelicans' third and fourth games in Europe and their first in France. The Spurs are on their 10th and 11th European games and their sixth in France. One team knows the routine of a midseason trip across the Atlantic. The other is learning it.

Accor Arena and three decades of the NBA

The arena at Bercy has hosted NBA basketball since 1994. Its own list of visiting teams runs from the Golden State Warriors and Charlotte Hornets to the Knicks, Heat, Nets, Cavaliers, Bulls, Pistons, Pacers and the Spurs themselves. The NBA counts the 2027 game as the 16th featuring an NBA team in France since 1991, and the sixth regular-season game in Paris.

Accor Arena sits on the Boulevard de Bercy, east of the city centre, and its hospitality guests use a private entrance on that side of the building rather than the public doors. On a busy NBA night, a separate entrance makes arrival noticeably easier for a group.

Hospitality at Accor Arena

The arena runs its corporate offer under the name Arena for Business, and most of it is built around a season rather than a single night. Les Loges are private boxes held for the whole season. Le Cercle and Le Club are subscription formats with reserved seats in the arena's hospitality stand. The (Re)Mix gives a box five, 10 or 15 times over a year. There's also Somewhere Bar by Handwritten Collection, a speakeasy that looks straight onto the stage, and The Apartment, a Haussmann-style apartment with a balcony overlooking the stage.

For a one-off group, the format built for a single game is La Privat', the arena's private hire for groups of 30 or more: your own space inside the building for the night, with reserved seats for the event. Group size is the first thing to settle. Under 30, the usual approach is good seats with a dinner arranged around the game. At 30 or more, La Privat' becomes an option, giving the group its own space for the evening.

Planning the trip from the UK

Thursday is the awkward bit. An 8pm tip-off in Paris means a 7pm start on UK clocks and a late finish, so for almost everyone travelling from Britain this is an overnight trip. My read: it works best as a Thursday and Friday. Travel in the morning, a long lunch, the game, home on Friday. The Manchester game follows on Sunday 17 January, and for groups who want both cities in one week that gap is just about workable, if tiring.

The NBA has also said there will be community and fan events around both games, including NBA Cares programmes and Jr. NBA youth clinics. The Paris details haven't been published yet.

Bringing a group from the UK

An overseas game is mostly logistics: seats together, a space that suits the group, and travel that does not leave anyone at Gare du Nord near midnight. If you are planning a group trip for 14 January, our team is happy to talk it through.

For other league games outside North America, see our NBA international games page and the wider basketball hospitality section. There's more on the building itself in our Accor Arena guide.

Photo credits: Accor Arena exterior by Vilacor, CC BY 4.0. Victor Wembanyama with Metropolitans 92 by Thomas S, CC BY-SA 2.0. Wheelchair basketball at Accor Arena by ZeusUpsistos, CC BY-SA 4.0. Victor Wembanyama with France by Pierre.berendes, CC BY-SA 4.0. Portrait photo: Victor Wembanyama by Daiei Onoguchi, CC BY 4.0.