As Arthur Hill noted in our Christmas Eve Community Shootaround, injuries have put a dent in the NBA’s Christmas Day schedule. The absences of players like Warriors guard Stephen Curry, Pelicans rookie Zion Williamson, and Raptors forward Pascal Siakam will reduce the star power in their respective matchups.
The idea of a flexible schedule put forth by Dwyane Wade and relayed in last night’s post by Arthur would be a tricky idea to implement, but there’s nothing stopping from us from imagining what our perfect Christmas Day slate would be.
We want your input on what today’s ideal NBA schedule would look like, based on current records and rosters.
Would you keep marquee games like Lakers/Clippers and Bucks/Sixers on the calendar? Would you still have five games on your schedule? Would you reduce or increase that number? Would your perfect schedule primarily involve the NBA’s best teams, or are there some under-the-radar clubs or players you’d like to see get the spotlight?
Here’s what my ideal schedule would look like:
- Raptors vs. Heat: Banged up or not, the defending champions deserve a Christmas Day showcase. Toronto and Miami are two of the best “effort” teams in the league and are good candidates to avoid a sluggish early-afternoon start.
- Celtics vs. Sixers: These two teams are on pace to win 60 and 56 games, respectively, and are relatively healthy, so it makes sense to keep them on the schedule. Matching them up against one another will give us a good rivalry game for the afternoon.
- Bucks vs. Mavericks: Assuming Luka Doncic is able to return, this game pits the reigning MVP against another rising star who should compete for the award for the foreseeable future. It would also be a matchup of the NBA’s best offense (Dallas) vs. the league’s best defense (Milwaukee).
- Lakers vs. Clippers: There’s no reason to remove this one from the schedule — especially with Anthony Davis and LeBron James expected to return from minor injuries.
- Rockets vs. Nuggets: Rather than pitting these two teams – who own the NBA’s longest active win streaks – against lottery-bound clubs, let’s have them face one another to close out the day.
Let’s hear your thoughts! Head to the comment section below and let us know what your hand-picked Christmas Day schedule would look like.
You realize they made schedule before season and didn’t expect curry to b hurt for warriors and expected zion to play for pelicans
I’m aware, yes.
I’m asking how you’d change the schedule if you could have a do-over today, based on what we know now.
Why so much complaining about the games? Only thing NBA could do is schedule about 10 games and choose the best match ups. By the way of those match ups I could careless to see a couple of them.
Just watch whatever games they give you. There’s always going to be some great games and some not so great games because teams fail to live up to expectations. Nobody is really intently watching 5 separate NBA games in a day with so much going on on Christmas anyway. It’s a really dumb thing to complain about.
An interesting thing to think about while the refs consult video replay.
Good lineup… start with the effort game and finish with a possibly exhausting game, then bedtime.
Better than what transpired anyway. The LA game featured unusual camera angles, so they were trying.