Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images
The NBA has, at long last, released its schedule for the 2019-20 season, and we’re going to rank the upcoming season’s Christmas Day games.
The NBA being played on Christmas Day has been one of the bedrock traditions of American sports.
No, this isn’t like Thanksgiving football, where the stakes are certainly high. Nor is it the Winter Classic in the NHL, which is criminally underrated. In truth, Christmas Day NBA games are more about the matchups and storylines than anything else, about putting marquee teams and players against each other for a thrilling day of basketball after you open the presents.
It’s sort of like an extra present under the tree, which is exactly what the 2019 Christmas Day slate will be for NBA fans. With the league featuring more parity than it has in about a decade, this upcoming slate of Christmas games promises to be a much-watch affair.
So, as part of our NBA schedule 2019-20 preview, we’ll rank the five Christmas Day games by watchability. This isn’t a rank of “bad to good,” but more like, “Is this worth sitting in front of the TV eating dinner?”. This list will go from “least watchable” to “if you miss this, why bother being an NBA fan?”.
All right, let’s begin.