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NBLThe season, counted

Not one NBL club plays two days in a row this season

The NBL27 fixture counted: 320 turnarounds and not one of them is a single day, plus the only empty week of the season and five straight nights at one arena.

By Adam26 Sept 20263 min readNumbers to the NBL27 fixture as stored on 20 September 2026
Figure 1

Every turnaround in the season, by how many days it is

days between one club's game and its next · 320 turnarounds · ten clubs, 33 games each
035701026236745154963273181096102112121136141
Note: Every gap between a club's consecutive NBL27 fixtures, counted by its length in days and derived from the stored local dates. The one-day column is the back-to-backs, and it holds nothing.Source: Punt's database, read 20 September 2026.
Show the numbers
Days between gamesTurnarounds
10
262
367
451
549
632
731
810
96
102
112
121
136
141

Why?

The fixture is published as a list of dates and everyone reads their own club's row. I wanted to read the whole thing at once and find out what shape the season actually is, because that is the part no fixture release tells you.

The NBL27 regular season is 165 games over 21 rounds, 33 for each of the ten clubs, from 19 September 2026 to 14 February 2027. A A block of fixtures the competition numbers together. NBL27 rounds run from four to seven days and hold between five and ten games, so a round is not a week.round is what the competition numbers, not a week. A The days between one club's game and its next one. Derived from the stored local dates. A turnaround of one day is a back-to-back.turnaround is the gap between one club's fixtures, and ten clubs playing 33 games each make 320 of them.

These numbers use dates and clubs only. Punt's fixture is missing a venue for 19 of the 165 games, including 14 of Sydney's 17 home games, so nothing here counts distance, travel or home-venue splits — those figures would be wrong, and a wrong kilometre is worse than no kilometre. The one exception is round 17, where all five fixtures carry the same arena.

Nobody plays twice in two days

The column that would hold back-to-backs is empty. Not one of the 320 turnarounds is a single day. The shortest is two days, 62 of them, and three days is the most common gap, 67 times. The longest is 14 days, and it belongs to the Tasmania JackJumpers.

Two-day turnarounds are not shared out evenly:

Two-day turnaroundsClubs
9Illawarra Hawks
8Tasmania JackJumpers, Sydney Kings
7Adelaide 36ers, Melbourne United, Perth Wildcats
5South East Melbourne Phoenix
4Cairns Taipans, Brisbane Bullets
3NZ Breakers

That is a real difference in how bunched a season is, and it is as far as a list of dates can honestly go.

Turnarounds in the season
320
Ten clubs, 33 games each
Turnarounds of one day
0
No back-to-backs anywhere
Longest single break
14 days
Tasmania JackJumpers

One empty week, in late November

The competition stops between 22 November and 2 December. That is 10 days with no NBL game anywhere, and the only week of the 22 that holds nothing. The next-longest stretch without a game is 4 days, at the start of February. The fixture records the dates, not the reason for them.

Figure 2

Games in each week of the season

weeks start Monday · 19 September 2026 to 14 February 2027
051014Sep42192895Oct71271972682Nov8991672303087Dec71472182894Jan1011518925101Feb889
Note: Every NBL27 fixture counted into the week it falls in. The season runs 22 weeks and one of them, the week beginning 23 Nov, holds no game at all.Source: Punt's database, read 20 September 2026.
Show the numbers
Week beginningGames
2026-09-144
2026-09-219
2026-09-289
2026-10-057
2026-10-127
2026-10-197
2026-10-268
2026-11-028
2026-11-099
2026-11-167
2026-11-230
2026-11-308
2026-12-077
2026-12-147
2026-12-218
2026-12-289
2027-01-0410
2027-01-115
2027-01-189
2027-01-2510
2027-02-018
2027-02-089

The rest of the season is close to continuous. Rounds 1 and 2 run nine days straight, from 19 to 27 September. From December the league plays through Christmas and New Year: round 14 covers 23 to 29 December, and round 15 runs across New Year.

↗Every NBL player's game logEach player's record in Punt, game by game, for every NBL club.Open the NBL players →

Five nights in Perth

Round 17 is the strangest block in the fixture: five games, five nights, all at RAC Arena in Perth, from Wednesday 13 to Sunday 17 January. Only one of the five is a Perth home game. In the other four a club is the listed home side playing in another city — Melbourne United, the Sydney Kings, Tasmania and Brisbane each give up a home date to be there.

  • 13 January: Melbourne United v Cairns Taipans
  • 14 January: Sydney Kings v South East Melbourne Phoenix
  • 15 January: Perth Wildcats v NZ Breakers
  • 16 January: Tasmania JackJumpers v Adelaide 36ers
  • 17 January: Brisbane Bullets v Illawarra Hawks

It is the only round in the season where every fixture sits at one venue, and the only stretch where the competition plays one game a night for five nights running.

Who travels furthest?

A fixture is a plan. Games get moved, and 2 of these 165 had been played when these numbers were read, so a date here is what was stored on 20 September 2026 and not necessarily what happens. Nothing in this article grades a draw or says which club came out of it better, because a list of dates cannot answer that and Punt does not make that call. The 2025-26 NBL season, round by round is what the last completed fixture turned into. If the venue gap is ever filled I would come back and count the travel, which is the part of a draw people actually argue about.

Summary

Back-to-backs
0of 320 turnarounds
Shortest gap
2 days62 times, every club has one3 daysthe most common, 67
Empty weeks
1of 22, the week beginning 23 Nov

The working

Definitions, sources and when the numbers were read
Round
The competition's own numbering. NBL27 has 21 regular-season rounds holding five to ten games each, spanning four to seven days.
Turnaround
Derived: the days between a club's consecutive fixtures, from the stored local dates. One day is a back-to-back; there are none in 320.
Empty week
Derived: a Monday-start calendar week with no NBL27 fixture on any day.
Window
2026-09-19 to 2027-02-14. Regular season only; the fixture stores no finals yet.
Not derived
Distance, travel and home-venue splits. 19 of the 165 fixtures have no venue stored, including 14 of Sydney's 17 home games, so any league-wide travel figure would be wrong.
Read
Punt's database on 20 September 2026. 2 of the 165 fixtures had been played.
Sources
The competition's own fixture is at nbl.com.au.
Not in this article
Travel, venues, crowds, broadcast slots, who plays whom how often, or any judgement about whether a draw suits a club.
Sources and terms
Every source Punt uses, with its licence, is on Credits. The terms are defined in the Glossary, and the methodology page sets out where every number comes from and the rules it follows.
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© 2026 Project Punt Pty Ltd · ABN 99 701 641 698 · Sydney · 18+. Gamble responsibly. Every number is a count of what already happened, with what it is out of. Nothing here is a tip.