Why the NBA's Christmas Day 2024 schedule is a failure

Christmas Day in the NBA is unlike anything else. For years, basketball was the sport that dominated the holiday season, and the league always tends to showcase the biggest markets with the biggest names on one of the biggest days of the year. As if unwrapping the presents under the Christmas tree wasn't fun enough, basketball fans have been treated to gifts from Adam Silver over the years, with players like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and other legendary talents giving their best as part of the NBA's Christmas Day schedule.

From budding rivalries to old-school showdowns to rematches of past championship series, the NBA has always valued Christmas Day play. It's one of the most marketable days of the year for the league, which is why the best of the best always play during the holiday season.

Last year, all five matchups had some sort of storyline. The Milwaukee Bucks and New York Knicks were two of the better teams in the Eastern Conference. The Denver Nuggets faced the Golden State Warriors in a matchup between two teams that had previously met in the playoffs. Then there were two rivalry games: the Philadelphia 76ers against the Miami Heat, followed by the Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns.

The top game on which the league based its Christmas Day encounters was, of course, that between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, who were reviving their long-standing rivalry.

Once again, the NBA has put together what it believes is the best Christmas schedule. While some of the fixtures include the big-name teams and names, the league has failed to recognize the increasing interest in other major organizations in the league.

Who is playing on Christmas Day?

What do NBA fans want to see during the Christmas Day games? LeBron James and Stephen Curry are obviously at the top of the list. But how many times does the league have to ram the Warriors-Lakers matchup into our minds before we're fed up?

Well, the NBA has always been about money.

These are two of the most marketable franchises in the league, two of the biggest stars of all time going head-to-head. It's pretty clear why this game is on Christmas. Then again, just because it's on Christmas doesn't make the game any more special than if they were playing each other sometime in the middle of the regular season.

The Celtics' clash with the Philadelphia 76ers is another big matchup that the league needs to promote. Not only are the defending champions playing on Christmas, which has become a given over the years, but they will also be facing a newly formed 76ers team that features Paul George alongside Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid. It's sure to be a good game.

Then there's a rematch of the Western Conference finals between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Dallas Mavericks. Luka Doncic and Anthony Edwards are two superstars in their own right, so it's clear why the league wants to highlight this matchup on the schedule.

The last two games the NBA has scheduled for Christmas make sense when you look at them closely, but from the perspective of a regular basketball fan, they will probably be the two least watched games. The only East-West game is the matchup between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs. In the last game between these two teams in March, Jalen Brunson scored 61 points and Victor Wembanyama had a double-double with 40 points and 20 rebounds.

The Knicks are expected to be one of the league's best teams next year, while Wembanyama will be named an All-Star for the struggling Spurs for the first time.

The Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns are expected to be the last two teams to play each other on Christmas Day. Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and Devin Booker will be on the court in this clash of two teams that don't really like each other. This matchup will again feature great basketball, but neither team won the Western Conference last year and the Suns only narrowly avoided their playoff spot via the play-in tournament.

Overall, this is a pretty disappointing lineup for Christmas Day. Instead of considering the teams that drive the league's viewership and highlighting matchups with bitter rivalries, the league has once again turned the spotlight on its aging stars. There's nothing wrong with that, as the media can't get enough of Steph vs. LeBron, but the NBA had a golden opportunity to usher in the new era of talent while also giving fans some great rivalry games on Christmas.

Who should play at Christmas?

NBA fans want more than just great games; they want action on Christmas Day. Of course, it's great to see Curry and James rekindle their rivalry, but later in their careers, it's become more of a friendship and mutual respect than a real rivalry. These Christmas games across the NBA should be filled with heated battles and fierce competition where players really don't like each other, which gives the games a little more meaning.

First, let's talk about the Milwaukee Bucks and the Indiana Pacers, two teams that will not be playing each other on Christmas this year. These two teams have played each other five times during the regular season, once in the semifinals of the first-ever NBA In-Season Tournament. In another meeting between them, Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a franchise-high 64 points and then chased the Pacers down the tunnel to try and retrieve the supposed game ball. In addition, Milwaukee and Indiana renewed their rivalry during the playoffs in a six-game first-round series that the Pacers won.

Drama is the only word that comes to mind when you think about the Bucks and Pacers taking the court. If the league really wanted to highlight some of the best matchups in the league, why not include these two teams in the Christmas schedule? Frankly, the NBA is probably afraid of the Bucks and Pacers getting physical on Christmas, a situation that could very well get out of hand. However, from a fan's perspective, this is certainly one of the most anticipated battles of the 2024-25 season.

Finally, Giannis himself seems to want to play on Christmas, after posting on social media: “No Christmas game?!”.

Another matchup that would have been great on the NBA's Christmas Day schedule features two teams that already play two different games. The Celtics and Knicks are projected to finish first and second in the Eastern Conference in the 2024-25 season. New York was one game away from advancing to the Eastern Conference finals in the postseason.

The fact is, on paper, these are definitely the two best teams in the East, so why aren't they playing on Christmas? This is a highly anticipated matchup, and the league missed a golden opportunity here. Giving the Knicks Wembanyama and the Spurs on Christmas is certainly marketable, which is probably why Silver and the league office went in that direction, especially after the thriller they played a few months ago.

Another matchup that would have been fun to watch is a cross-conference game between the 76ers and the Nuggets. The main reason this would have been such an exciting game to watch on Christmas Day is the fact that it features Jokic and Embiid, the two players who have won the last four MVP awards. These two centers renewed their rivalry at the Olympics this summer, yet they always seem to avoid each other during the regular season. We need to see Embiid and Jokic play against each other, which is why this would have been a great night game in Denver.

The NBA didn't want to miss the opportunity to add the Warriors and Lakers to the schedule, but why do they have to play each other?

The Warriors' clash with the Mavericks in San Francisco would have provided plenty of drama with Klay Thompson's return. Not to mention that the Warriors and Mavs have long been rivals in the Western Conference. The final game on Christmas Day could have been a passing of the torch, with LeBron and the Lakers taking on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Although they are still young, the Thunder have a chance to be the next great dynasty for years to come. Gilgeous-Alexander has emerged as a legitimate MVP candidate, and there would be no better challenge for the Lakers at this point in the season than facing a Thunder team that finished 1st in the conference last year at 57-25.

The problem with the NBA's Christmas Day 2024 schedule is that not much effort or thought has been put into it. Instead of offering five very unique and high-quality games, the league is betting everything on the Warriors-Lakers series and hoping that will boost viewership for the remaining games.