Sacramento Kings snubbed again

The 2024-25 NBA Christmas Day roster was announced on Thursday, and for the 21st consecutive year, the Sacramento Kings were excluded from the festivities.

As the tweet above shows, on Christmas Day, the San Antonio Spurs will play the New York Knicks, the Minnesota Timberwolves will play the Dallas Mavericks, the Philadelphia 76ers will play the Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers will play the Golden State Warriors, and the Denver Nuggets will play the Phoenix Suns.

The NBA on Christmas Day is a story as old as time. In fact, the league has played its games on December 25 every year since 1947 – one year after its founding in 1946. Since December 25, 1947, the NBA has played basketball on Christmas every year, except during the lockout in 1998.

Unlike the NFL on Thanksgiving, where the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions always play, there are no specific NBA teams that always get to play on Christmas Day. Every year, as they did this offseason, the league's front office meets and decides which teams and matchups will help maximize popularity and, more importantly, profits.

As we've alluded to before, the Kings haven't played on Christmas Day in quite some time. In this case, “quite some time” means 2003. In that game, the Kings lost to the Mavericks (who actually had a Christmas Day game) 111-103. The only other time they've played on December 25th in their franchise's history was the year before (2002), when they beat the Lakers 105-99.

Overall, the Kings have a 1-1 record on Christmas Day. Unfortunately, the Kings have no chance to improve on that score this year.

I always hate it when someone says a player/team is a failure and doesn't name the player/team that should be replaced. For this reason, I won't do that.

For me, the answer to who the Kings should replace is simple: the Suns. The Kings may not have the top firepower of the Suns, but we've already seen the limitations of their redundant trio. Sacramento has more chemistry, lineup diversity and better supporting cast. They should be considered the better team of the two in any Western Conference power rankings.

Yes, there is a bit of a rivalry between the Suns and the Nuggets given their recent playoff matchups. But the Kings are essentially the Nuggets' little brothers and therefore have their own exciting history.

In short, the Kings have been snubbed since Christmas. Now they must use the 2024-25 season to get the league to revise their words.