What's the point of the NBA on Christmas?

It's all about getting ratings and converting casuals into fans. You do that with compelling superstar players and experiences.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

---

Foire de Noël sur la place Kléber, Emile Schweitzer, 1859

After a couple of leaks of a game here and there, Shams Charania reported the entire 5-game NBA on Christmas slate over the weekend.

Shams Charania @ShamsCharania

Sources: NBA’s 2022 Christmas Day schedule: Bucks at Celtics 76ers at Knicks Suns at Nuggets Lakers at Mavericks Grizzlies at Warriors

This is always the most excitable item to come out of the otherwise mundane NBA schedule release, especially in years like this one where there’s not some ultra-attractive grudge match on the table. (Where’s the hype for Rudy Gobert’s return to Salt Lake City?!)

Not getting a Christmas Day game can become a real personality trait for fans and players for a few days. Exhibit A, posted right after Shams leaked the schedule:

Trae Young @TheTraeYoung

👎🗑😂😂😂😂

There’s also the annual grousing about the Knicks and the Lakers (people like the Knicks and Lakers! get over it!), there’s always a hipster team getting snubbed that draws the attention of neckbeards (guilty as charged, I want the f—king Wolves on Christmas) (and while we’re at it the Raptors too, dammit), there’s concern trolling over the NBA [ahem] Not Knowing How To Grow Its Game.

But this seems like some pretty simple calculus. The NBA has casual eyeballs on Christmas more than any other time of the regular season. The only bit that rivals it is All-Star Weekend. The NBA also has detailed ratings and attention data on what works and what doesn’t. The NBA, I would suggest, knows what it’s doing, by and large.

Based on the games the NBA has been choosing in recent years, here’s what the league believes works:

• Championship contenders

• Transcendently awesome superstars

• The Warriors, always

• LeBron, always

• The motherf—king New York Knicks

Here’s what the NBA appears to be more skeptical of:

• Young, unproven teams on the rise

• Superstars who were injured all or much of the previous season

  • Specifically, Kawhi Leonard

• Great teams without large fanbases

  • Specifically, the Los Angeles Clippers

• Teams on the precipice of implosion

• Teams that are not the Knicks or Lakers who stand a reasonable chance of being mediocre

One presumes that the NBA likes making money on behalf of its “shareholders” (the franchise owners) and uses the evidence at hand to land on the conclusions above.

Who are the most visually compelling superstars in the NBA right now? Here’s my list:

• Steph Curry

• LeBron

• Giannis Antetokounmpo

• Nikola Jokic

• Luka Doncic

• Ja Morant

All of those dudes are playing on Christmas. That accounts for six of the 10 teams in action, with the Warriors double-qualifying on account of being the Warriors. (If the NBA could make the Warriors play three games on Christmas, they would. The Warriors are easy money and their championship resurgence is some of the best news the NBA has had in years.)

The other four teams in action on Christmas, explained:

• The Knicks, who have an enormous fanbase, universal recognition as an Important If Beguiling NBA Franchise and a really high-energy, entertaining home crowd. We’ll come back to this.

• The Celtics, defending East champs and one of the best teams in the league, with two highly compelling young stars in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. The Celtics as a franchise are also easy money, like the Knicks.

• The Suns, who are actually not all that compelling by the criteria we’re setting out here but have been really awesome the last two regular seasons, will probably have an excellent record in late December and make for a nice foil for Jokic and the Nuggets.

• The Sixers, who have one of the most dominant players in the world in Joel Embiid, a famous and compelling co-star in James Harden, and figure to be on the list of contenders.

Overall, I think six of the teams in action are completely inarguable and unimpeachable (Warriors, Knicks, Lakers, Mavericks, Bucks, Celtics). It would be criminally negligent to leave any of those six teams on the cutting room floor. Because of the unique and spectacular draws of Ja and Jokic, I think those are no-brainers as well.

The Sixers? You know, I see the case for them — I wrote it neatly in the bullets above — but I also see the case against them. Embiid is thoroughly dominant and I find him visually compelling to watch. The team is otherwise a bit of a grind. I would be amenable to a case being made for the Heat (really good), Hawks (compelling star in Trae Young) or Bulls (large fanbase, pretty good) to play at Madison Square Garden here. I would love to be able to, with a straight face, make the argument on behalf of my beloved Raptors (Scottie Barnes! bring casuals onto the train early!) or the CLEVELAND CAVALIERS (remember the young, unproven bit?). But there’s a pretty straightforward case for the Sixers. It’s Joel Embiid and James Harden. Don’t overthink it.

The Suns? Yeah, I think this is the option team for the NBA. The team where the league could have gone a few different directions. The debatable inclusion.

The Nuggets don’t usually get this type of showcase. The team has been past the second round once in this era, and that was in the bubble. But you simply cannot under any circumstances leave Jokic off of the league’s biggest showcase at this point. He’s the two-time reigning MVP, and if you can’t put together a game casual fans want to watch starring him, you’re in for a world of hurt. And so the NBA puts Jokic and the Nuggets against the Suns.

I understand choosing the Suns in that I think their series against the Mavericks was less about whether they are false gods than it was about Luka’s brilliance and Phoenix’s COVID-19 issues. I have no issue with the Suns here. But there really isn’t a rocket-ship superstar here to build on, and this isn’t a team that is CAN’T MISS because of how good they are. The nature of their high-profile beatdown in a Game 7 a few months ago makes them much more likely to be a punchline to casual fans than a draw.

In that sense, I consider the Suns getting a Christmas Day game against the Nuggets a missed opportunity of sorts. The team I’d work to stick there instead? The New Orleans Pelicans. They had a rousing series in which they pressed these very Suns hard in the playoffs, and they should have one of the more compelling stars back in Zion Williamson. Devin Booker is great and famous thanks to the Suns’ recent Finals run. Chris Paul is famous and old. Zion is famous and young. Brandon Ingram is great and not very famous and young. That seems like the growth opportunity here: convert more casuals who know and like Zion into Zion Fans, build up the Brandon Ingram fan base, get the Pelicans some more juice given that it seems they will be a team that matters in the near term. Plus, the people are saying more and more that they need more Herb Jones in their lives. Give the people what they want.

This is basically the same case you’d make to highlight the Grizzlies last year, the Mavericks a couple years ago, the Bucks a year or two before that, and the Kings next year. “This player and this team have next. Get in the car.”

So for me, you do that with the Pelicans or the Wolves this season over the Suns. That’s my quibble. I see why the NBA picked the Suns — remember, being a title contender is a key criteria, and Phoenix will be in the mix for a top seed this season unless it all falls apart, plus there’s a chance Kevin Durant could be on the roster by then. Lots of good reasons. But the growth opportunity is with one of the two younger teams.

Which finally brings us to the other likely Western Conference contender nowhere to be seen on the Christmas list: the L.A. Clippers. I actually agree with the NBA’s decision-making here. Yes, the Clippers might begin the season No. 2 on my personal Western Conference rankings list behind the Warriors. They might have a higher floor than any West team and a very competitive ceiling. They have two likely Hall of Famers in their relative primes. They have Los Angeles.

Here’s the thing:

• No one cares about the L.A. Clippers outside of their normal NBA team sized fanbase.

  • Related: the energy of a Knicks game at MSG is in no way comparable as a television event to a Clippers game at FunnyMoney.com Arena. I don’t care how big the market is, it’s just nothing remotely comparable.¹ As a non-Knicks fan, you watch basically any Knicks home game and you want to be there, you want to experience that history-filled arena and that crowd. It doesn't matter an iota that the Knicks have basically been mostly irrelevant for 25 years and haven't won a title in 50 years. Some things just feel like they matter more. Basketball at the Garden is one of those things.

• Much to my chagrin, Kawhi Leonard has never appeared all that compelling to casual fans.

• Much to my chagrin, Paul George has never appeared all that compelling to casual fans.

Other than “they are going to be a very good basketball, probably,” there’s no compelling reason to give the Clippers one of these 10 slots. And yes, you can say the same about the Suns and maybe the Sixers. But that’s not an affirmative case for the Clippers, even though I might end up picking them as my preseason title favorite.

Oh God did I just say I might end up picking THE L.A. CLIPPERS as my preseason title favorite? Somebody stop me. Please.

1. Sorry for the stray, Cryptonians.