Behold the stars
NBA lets big names dazzle on Christmas
NEW YORK — For fans who can’t get enough of the NBA’s reigning rivalry, watching LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers take on Kevin Durant and the Golden State Warriors again is its own holiday.
For those preferring something new, the league’s always festive Christmas schedule has that, too.
Today’s lineup of games is decorated with stars, with the NBA Finals rematch standing out among the top teams and power players. The league is driven by big names, and the NBA is going all in this year — today’s schedule is about the best players, not all the best teams.
And with Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Kristaps Porzingis starting the day, and Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma and Karl-Anthony Towns finishing it, this year’s showcase is as much about the guys who are next up on the marquee as those on top already.
“They’re doing it for talent,” said the Sacramento Kings’ Vince Carter, who at age 40 is in his 20th NBA season. “You have the talent and the marketable players, so I understand why they’re picking those teams.”
Here’s the schedule:
› New York hosts Philadelphia, with the Knicks getting their first Christmas game since 2001.
› The Warriors welcome the Cavs back to the place where they finished them off in Game 5 in June for their second championship in three years.
› Washington is at Boston in the Celtics’ first home game on Christmas.
› Oklahoma City against Houston, a matchup of MVP Russell Westbrook and runner-up James Harden.
› Minnesota visiting the Lakers, with both teams having acquired some of the best young talent in the league in recent drafts.
Christmas was once a kickoff of sorts for the NBA, the first time a national audience paid attention to pro basketball with football season winding down. ABC analyst Jeff Van Gundy, a former coach who will work the Cavs-Warriors game, was among those who had said the league should consider starting its season at Christmas to get out from under the NFL’s shadow.
Now it’s a celebration of the success the NBA is already enjoying. Combined viewership on ESPN and TNT is up 21 percent this season, with games averaging 1.9 million viewers, and that’s before what figures to be the biggest numbers of the season.
ESPN said its audience is the second-highest it has ever had at this point behind 2010-11, James’ first season with the Miami Heat, and Van Gundy said he’s even a little surprised.
“I don’t know what it speaks to, but we do have a bunch of really good young players,” Van Gundy said. “We have a dynasty in the making in Golden State, we have a team trying to challenge them in their own conference — or a couple teams in San Antonio and Houston — and LeBron is still rolling.”
All of them but the Spurs are in action today, when players take the spotlight more than teams.
Carter was the type of player NBA fans couldn’t get enough of early in his career, and that was before every game was on League Pass and there were highlights all over the internet. He would have been a perfect candidate to have the chance to shine on Christmas, but the league only played two or three games on Dec. 25 back then, and his Toronto Raptors were only shown once.
“We were fun to watch,” Carter said. “We wanted that opportunity.”
This is the 10th straight year of five games on Christmas, and with a third of the league playing, room is there for just about everybody fans would want to pile in front of their TVs to watch.
Well, almost everybody. Van Gundy was hoping for the Milwaukee Bucks and their gravity-ignoring Greek Freak, Giannis Antetokounmpo.
“They should just film a scrimmage of theirs then, because Giannis is so good that he deserves to have publicity on Christmas Day,” Van Gundy said. Maybe next year.
As for this year, the holiday hoops smorgasbord will easily fill fans’ plates: ›
A tantalizing twosome who might have been another “Big Three.” Embiid and Simmons have the 76ers on the rise in their first year together, but imagine if Porzingis was there with them. The Knicks took the 7-foot-3 forward with the No. 4 pick in 2015, immediately after Philadelphia passed for the since-traded Jahlil Okafor. › LeBron & KD — Enough said. › Peace on Christmas? Maybe not in Boston, where the Celtics and Wizards renew a heated rivalry that only grew hotter after they went seven games in the Eastern Conference semifinals last season. Toss in the Celtics’ Kyrie Irving going against the Wizards’ John Wall, and the plot thickens. ›
Westbrook versus Harden alone would have been a good gift, but it’s even better after Chris Paul joined Harden in Houston while Paul George and Carmelo Anthony teamed up with Westbrook in Oklahoma City. ›
Christmas is for kids, and the Lakers have Ball and Brandon Ingram, the past two No. 2 draft picks, and the lesser-known Kuzma, who might become the best of the bunch. The Timberwolves have their own youngsters in Towns and Andrew Wiggins, but it’s the acquisition of Jimmy Butler that could finally end their postseason drought that dates to 2004.
The Celtics’ situation illustrates what today is all about from a marketing standpoint.
Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce had just departed when Brad Stevens arrived as coach, and the NBA didn’t want the league’s most storied franchise for a Christmas matchup without its superstars. So Boston was ignored for three years before finally getting back on the schedule last year, and now Irving, Jayson Tatum and their teammates will make history as the first Celtics team to be home for the holiday.
“I understand that it’s probably not everybody’s favorite event, people that bust their tail and work in the arenas and are there all the time, and maybe media and everybody else,” Stevens said. “But to be a player or coach on Christmas Day, it’s pretty special, and I think it’s something that having not been there our first couple of years, I don’t take for granted that we’re