Christmas has long been a showcase for the NBA, a chance to put the top teams and brightest stars on display. While the league usually does a good job of identifying them months in advance, there are exceptions, which is how we wound up with the Warriors and Pelicans as part of this year’s holiday slate.
When the schedule makers were picking out teams this summer, there was no way to know that Golden State would be crushed by injuries, including Stephen Curry‘s broken hand four games into the season, and would be fielding a roster that often resembles an expansion team. Likewise, they couldn’t have predicted preseason knee surgery for New Orleans rookie Zion Williamson, who would have been an automatic ratings boost if he had remained healthy.
So even after taking the Knicks off the Christmas Day schedule, the league might be stuck with two duds tomorrow. The Warriors host the Rockets in the middle of the five-game marathon, and the Pelicans travel to Denver in the nightcap for a contest that many fans may not stay up to watch after a full day of basketball and holiday cheer.
Former NBA star Dwyane Wade offered a solution to potential Christmas mismatches in a tweet last night.
“Proposal: Christmas games should be earned,” he wrote. “Let’s have an element of surprise in the schedule. The teams that are playing well are the ones that needs to be playing on Christmas Day. Reward the teams just like we reward players with an in season AllStar game.”
Wade’s idea would obviously be tricky to implement. A few days would have to kept open on the schedule so that the teams not selected for Christmas could get their games in. And the future schedule would have to be flexible enough that all teams still play everyone in their division four times and every team in the other conference twice.
However, as the league tries to be forward thinking with its regular season and searches for ideas to increase fan interest, Wade’s suggestion is worth considering. Instead of being stuck with the current versions of the Warriors and Pelicans, fans would be more excited to watch early-season surprises like the Heat and Mavericks or maybe a dynamic young talent like Ja Morant.
We want to get your thoughts on Wade’s tweet. Please leave your feedback in the space below, and Merry Christmas to all of our readers.
SOUND’S LIKE A BETTER IDEA
No sounds like a dumb idea. maybe they should schedule 10 games and just broadcast the 5 that fans want to see. Injuries are part of the game so there is no way they can see ahead stars not getting injured.
yeah its super hard to make this work since tickets for the games all go on sale at once and it would be a major nightmare to try and reschedule games that people were already buying tickets for months before Xmas.
I dont think this could work unless you just schedule 81 games for all the teams, and play 3 days on the 25-27th where you match by record and the better teams are on the 25th. This unbalances the schedule so it would mean rotating playing one team 3 times instead of 4 so all 30 would have a free game.
At least then your not replacing already scheduled and sold games later in the season because they get a Xmas game where of course it would be different tickets then the ones people already bought for that matchup on the original date.
GS wasn’t that good this season even before before Curry got hurt.
On the date the schedules were announced they looked like at least a lower seed playoff team. Just look at the mediocrity fighting it out for the 8th in the west currently. They probably had built most of the schedule before Klay was hurt honestly where they work on it for months before its announced. No way of foreseeing these circumstances back when those decisions were made.
It sounds cool — but it’s WAYYY too complicated to actually work into the schedule. Because you’ve not only got to consider the team’s that would “make it” but then also who plays who. And on top of all of that — it would actually be a negative for a team to “earn” a Christmas Day game because it would mean they had to play another good team as opposed to having it just be a random opponent (which granted might still be a good team – but could also just as easily be a bad one) no one “wants” to be “rewarded” with an extra “difficult” matchup… even if the entertainment value is higher the actual players/team would be getting ‘penalized’
The two teams will play at another time, anyway.
Now of course the league has been talking more about cutting games, but if you add an 83rd game and keep the 24-25th open you could have all the teams matched by closest record then the bottom 20 teams play their 10 games on the 24th and the top ten play their 5 on the 25th.
This lets you match these games two weeks out lets say, and just for fun say lower win% team gets home court or flips for ties with a cut off date on the 10th to schedule them. Everyone plays a game vs a team they are somewhat fairly matched with lowest win% starts the 24th, and maybe make the premier matchup game 3 on the 25th.
The schedule would be imbalanced, but in a pretty fair way where nobodies in a huge miss-match.
How about letting players (and fans) spend time with their families on Christmas?
Or is that more radical than randomly scheduled NBA games?
Lol
There are no NBA games on Christmas Eve. That’s family time. For every team.
Now of course the league has been talking more about cutting games, but if you add an 83rd game and keep the 24-25th open you could have all the teams matched by closest record then the bottom 20 teams play their 10 games on the 24th and the top ten play their 5 on the 25th.
This lets you match these games two weeks out lets say, and just for fun say lower win% team gets home court or flips for ties with a cut off date on the 10th to schedule them. Everyone plays a game vs a team they are somewhat fairly matched with lowest win% starts the 24th, and maybe make the premier matchup game 3 on the 25th.
The schedule would be imbalanced, but in a pretty fair way where nobodies in a huge miss-match.
You don’t need 5 games on Christmas Day. Let players and fans enjoy time with their families. I think 1 afternoon game would be more than sufficient, and you could “flex schedule” it … line up all the teams to play the 24th/26th and bump one game to the 25th a week or so prior, based on what the most engaging matchup on the schedule would be. Or … just automatically make the game on the 25th a rematch of last year’s final. even if both teams stink the following year, it still makes for an interesting storyline.
I love the all day Christmas basketball. Who sits and watch a whole game anyway ?It’s just on and you catch the game here and there while spending time with family. I love it.
The only way this works is if you don’t officially schedule games during that week. You have a TBD, tickets don’t go on sale for that week until Thanksgiving or so, which is when you set that schedule. So teams off to a hot start are the rewarded teams. Enough time for tickets to be bought and arrangements to be made.
Exactly. Not complicated. Unlike a tournament, the matchups could be made to fit the scheduling requirements based on divisions. Start with the #1 record & move on… and it would not have to be the exact top 10 if it doesn’t work out.
Maybe the owners will vote this as a compromise if the in-season trny idea gets voted down! A tournament with a winner should be precise (fair).
Or you could put the final of the tournament on Christmas Day. Then you have to “earn it” and it’s not going to affect the later schedule, since it’s not a scheduled game anyway
Logistical nightmare aside, it would be fun to split the season into thirds and have the best team of east and west play an earned preview of plausible finals on Xmas.
Reduce the number of games to 4 and just go with the top 2 teams in each division.
Give the players a really nice Christmas gift bag.
Give season ticket holders a half price thank you gift as well.
Can even have a on line live lottery drawing for a gift bag to 25 people from each team. With NBA marching dollar value in a donation to the charity of their choice.
The Santa touch would be nice. After all it is Christmas day.
How about converting to 82 1-game seasons per year so every team gets a chance at least to be tied for 1st place a few times a year? That will satisfy casual fair weather fans and give everyone a Christmas present of vicarious self esteem.
Just schedule all teams without picking the ones that will be on National TV
This aged well