After getting a taste of what it’ll be like playing with new teammates Klay Thompson and Draymond Green as part of the gold-medal winning USA Olympic team in Rio, Kevin Durant will get to see what playing with two-time defending league MVP Stephen Curry is like when he officially makes his Golden State Warriors debut in an exhibition contest against the Toronto Raptors in Vancouver.
Playing as part of the NBA’s fifth annual Canada Series, Durant will lace ’em up for the Bay Area for the first time at Rogers Arena on Oct. 1, facing off against fellow Team USA teammates DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry and the rest of the Raptors contingent.
Additionally, the NBA Canada Series will also see the Raptors face 2016 No. 7 overall pick and Kitchener, Ont., native Jamal Murray and his Denver Nuggets in a pre-season contest on Oct. 3 at Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary.
Tickets for the games go on sale on Sept. 2 at Ticketmaster.
Last year, the Raptors played four games as part of the NBA Canada series, heading to Vancouver, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal. For the last two seasons they’ve held their training camp in Vancouver and remained in the city to play their first exhibition game. The team hasn’t officially announced its training camp schedule yet, but being in Vancouver on Oct. 1 for pre-season should mean chances are they’ll have camp on the West Coast for the third straight year.
The Raptors and Nuggets open their regular seasons on Oct. 26, while the Warriors begin their 2016-17 campaign one day earlier on Oct. 25.