The Ultimate NBA Road Trip

With the NBA Playoffs in full swing, basketball fans will be glued to the action across the next six weeks or so. And many will be traveling cross-country to catch their favorite teams in action.

Yet, any time of the NBA season is good for an NBA road trip. The USA is, of course, vast, so you’d have to be prepared to sit behind the wheel for long stretches, but the idea of an NBA road trip is a dream for many basketball fans. It just requires a little planning.

There are basically three options if you want to avoid travelling 1000s of miles from one city to another. We’ve broken them down to the East Coast, the West Coast, and a Midwest-Lakes Loop.

The East Coast Trip

Logistically, this is probably your best option, letting you catch five NBA teams without needing to travel too far. Indeed, if you are not planning on taking a car, the Northeast is your best bet for public transport. Indeed, while the US – let’s be honest – isn’t great for traveling by train, Amtrak does a good job around this corridor.

In terms of ball action, seeing the Knicks at Madison Square Garden is one of those bucket-list items. The Knicks are building a good team at the moment, including a player who should have been much better placed in the NBA season MVP odds this year, Jalen Brunson.

The Celtics, too, offer a great starting point. Boston is mad about sports, and depending on the time of year, you might also get to see the Red Sox, New England Patriots or Bruins. The city is compact enough not to feel overwhelming.

The West Coast Trip

A trip like this acts as a reminder of just how big California is. The starting leg, heading from San Francisco, which is the home of the Golden State Warriors, to Sacramento, will take you just over 90 minutes on the I-80. However, there’s a much more scenic way to do the trip, explained here, that could be well worth the extra few hours.

The trip from Sacramento to LA is long – it’ll take you about six hours – but, once again, that’s in a straight line, so you could mix it up by hugging the coastline. Once you get to LA, you have the bonus of not needing to travel too far to see two teams – the Lakers play at the Crypto.com Arena in Downtown LA, whereas the Clippers play in the Intuit Dome – it’s about twenty minutes by car, which depends on the infamous LA traffic, however.

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The trip to Phoenix should be considered an extra, but you could continue the trip by heading north to see the Utah Jazz, northeast to see the Nuggets, or heading due east to Texas, where you can see the Dallas Mavericks, San Antonio Spurs, and Houston Rockets.

The Midwest & Lakes Loop

This is a really underrated road trip, taking in some fantastic cities across the Midwest, Great Lakes, and Rust Belt. You might have to loop around yourself a couple of times, but it is worth it, and you’ll get to some historic NBA teams on the way. This arguably provides the best “pure” road trip, as it provides both the city legs and good scenery while taking in a bunch of games.

There are options to switch it up, however. For example, you could start in Indianapolis, hit Chicago, then Milwaukee, and finish up in the brilliantly underrated city of Minneapolis. You could also go cross-border, finishing up the US leg of your trip, then taking the journey to Toronto, Canada to see the Raptors. It’s about a 4-5-hour drive depending on the traffic.