Ranking the 2024 NBA Christmas Day Games

If there’s one big nit to pick with this year’s Christmas Day slate, it’s the dearth of rematches from last postseason. Granted, there aren’t many good ones to choose from, but this sequel to the Western Conference finals—featuring two of the league’s most overwhelming young talents—is worth signing up for. 

Dallas beat Minnesota back in October, but that game was only a few weeks after Karl-Anthony Towns was traded for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo. The Timberwolves had three games under their belt and virtually no chemistry among their most important players. Now, a couple months later, um, well, they still have no idea how to score the ball. 

In the other corner, this is by far the most impressive roster Dallas has ever put around Luka Doncic, a perennial MVP candidate who forces Minnesota to deviate from the advantages provided by its normal base defense. 

When guarding a pick-and-roll with Rudy Gobert on the court, the Timberwolves usually don’t put themselves in rotation. They guard the ball handler and the screener 2-on-2 and then stay home on the perimeter. But drop coverage is tissue paper against the pull-up jumpers that Luka and Kyrie Irving are able to drill in their sleep. 

It raises a question: Will Minnesota switch and blitz more in this game? Will Gobert come up higher on the floor with help behind him (which could gift Klay Thompson and P.J. Washington the cross-court corner 3s they love)? Or will the Wolves treat Dallas like everybody else, goad a bunch of long 2s and try to win the math game? 

The chess match here might be pure pleasure. And if any sore feelings from last season’s playoff series bubble to the surface, all the better. Anthony Edwards might throw down a dunk that’s vicious enough to repudiate the entire concept of “holiday spirit.” But despite all that, and the promise of Kyrie making at least one move I didn’t think was physically possible, the thought of watching Minnesota’s offense go scoreless for nine straight minutes is too upsetting to rank this game above any others.

Is this sacrilegious? Maybe! My sincerest apologies. Steph Curry is still a magician who happens to play basketball and LeBron James, in what could be his last Christmas Day game (you never know!), will likely put on a show. But the actual stakes here are just so … diminished.

Both teams have winning records but are on track to only make the play-in (again). The Lakers have picked things up on defense the last week or so but are more than likely still not very good on that end. The Warriors, meanwhile, are increasingly desperate and disoriented by their own roster. (It’s too thin at the top and too deep on the back end.) There’s a decent chance both lineups look very different six weeks from now, but a slim to zero possibility any changes they make before the trade deadline will turn either into a legitimate title contender. 

We’re over two months into the season and neither JJ Redick or Steve Kerr has settled into a consistent rotation. It’s confusing. Max Christie is somehow a critical role player. Dennis Schröder has never been the answer to anyone’s problems. Dalton Knecht’s minutes are in a free fall. Brandin Podziemski plays hard but is a mess. Jonathan Kuminga is getting yanked in and out of the starting lineup, undercutting (extremely brief) flashes of stardom with consistently poor decision-making:

Injuries have had their say, but the Warriors and Lakers are two teams still scrambling for answers that probably don’t exist. So, while it’ll still be cool to watch those legendary players take the floor in San Francisco on Christmas night, it’s hard to get super excited knowing their relevance is fleeting by the day.

I love watching Nikola Jokic and Kevin Durant play basketball. I also love the intrigue that comes when two organizations that are effectively all in play against each other. The Suns and Nuggets see themselves—earnestly, precariously—as genuine contenders. They share playoff history, top-heavy rosters, and more than a few disturbing losses this season. Phoenix can’t lose to the Indiana Pacers when Durant gives them 37 points, 10 rebounds, and six assists. Or get embarrassed by the Detroit Pistons when KD drops 43 points. They can’t keep committing inexcusable turnovers or allow opponents to run their half-court offense without any real resistance. On the other side, Denver can’t lose to the Portland Trail Blazers when Jokic scores 34 points on 18 shots. It can’t keep getting pummelled in transition or allow so many offensive rebounds.

But both teams can still be lifted to towering heights by their most important player. As much as it probably frustrates him—mercenaries don’t usually want to be relied upon—the Suns need KD. Phoenix is 13-4 when he plays and 1-9 when he’s out. Its half-court offense, in particular, goes from boiling to a shiver in his absence, and lineups that feature Devin Booker and Bradley Beal without Durant are wretched. 

Meanwhile, the Nuggets deploy a 29-year-old three-time MVP who is currently, somehow, in the middle of his most impressive season. Jokic is averaging 31 points, 13 rebounds, and 9.8 assists per game. He’s shooting 50 percent behind the 3-point line and owns one of the widest on-off point differentials any star has ever had (which is really saying something when you look at how bad the Nuggets have been in past seasons when Jokic needs to rest). 

Just look at this!

It’s the capper to a five-year run of perpetual dominance. As the clubhouse leader to win his fourth MVP since 2021, the number of players who’ve reigned over the league quite like he is, for as long as he has, is shrinking. Here’s a look at the players who spent at least five straight seasons leading the NBA in value over replacement player (regular season and playoffs combined) since 1973:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 1975-80 (five years)
Michael Jordan: 1987-93 (seven years), then 1995-98 (three years)
LeBron James: 2006-13 (eight years) 
Nikola Jokic: 2021-25 (five years)

If this season’s ranking holds, this will be Jokic’s fifth straight season leading the NBA in VORP. It’s just one catch-all statistic that doesn’t make or break anyone’s legacy. But it does speak to how historically great Jokic is, and how rare players like him truly are. 

For Joel Embiid’s entire career, the Sixers haven’t had a big wing on their roster who could guard Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, then turn around and make them guard him on the other end. But Paul George, when healthy, gives Philly a theoretical solution to this long-running matchup issue. Christmas Day will be the first look at how it goes.

A clash against the defending champs will be a measuring stick for the new-look Sixers, a team that’s spent most of this season toiling between “work in progress” and “hopeless disappointment.” For the Celtics, it’s little more than the 30th game of their season. Their regular season is less about self-discovery than self-preservation. For some, that tendency to thrive on autopilot is too mechanical to entertain. But, static personnel aside, Boston is an evolving organism that can still ultimately be even better than it was last season. One Celtic, in particular, is in the middle of a subtle and long-anticipated growth spurt that should garner more attention than it has. 

Since he became an All-Star-caliber player, Boston has wanted Brown to make two tangible strides: get to the line and facilitate for other people. This year, coming off a championship run that saw him grab Eastern Conference Finals and Finals MVP, Brown is steadily improving in those two areas; it should terrify a league that still hasn’t figured out how to slow this team down. 

His 6.0 free throw attempts per game are a career-high, and his free throw rate is up a whopping 9.1 percentage points from last season.  Brown has shot at least 10 free throws in seven games this season, which is already another career high and two more than all of last year. He’s tied for drawing the 14th-most fouls per 100 possessions, too. That’s more than Tatum, Towns, and Trae Young. 

He’s obviously stronger than ever. He’s also more patient, a quality that really pops when you look at some of the passes he’s made this season. Brown’s assist rate (21.5 percent) is also a career high, largely because defenses are showing more help than ever. He’s currently tied for seventh across the entire league in secondary assists per game and generates 1.49 points per chance on scoring chances that end when he passes the ball, which is first out of 56 players who’ve logged at least 100 plays, per Sportradar. 

Yes, Brown’s true shooting percentage is below league average for the first time since 2019 and advanced catch-all stats still don’t gush over his impact. But there’s good reason to think his accuracy from the midrange and 3-point line will eventually rise to where it’s been the past few years. Until then, he’s doing everything that’s asked of him and is still an All-NBA candidate. 

In a stark departure from every season since Tatum’s rookie year, right now lineups that include Brown but not Tatum are more efficient than lineups with Tatum but not Brown. The Celtics just may be unbeatable if this holds true: 

There’s a good chance the very first game of the day is also its most memorable. Under normal circumstances, it’d be pretty random to send a team from south Texas to midtown Manhattan for a Christmas Day game. There’s very little history or juice here. But what could be viewed as a contrived decision to shove Victor Wembanyama down everyone’s throat could also just simply be interpreted as a spectacle that demands our collective attention. 

What better environment than Madison Square Garden for Wembanyama to make his Christmas Day debut? Stylistically, this game offers more than just a glitzy backdrop for Wemby’s potential coming out party, on the NBA’s grandest stage, in front of what may be one of the largest audiences that’s ever watched him play. It pits one of the NBA’s most potent offensive attacks against a prohibitive favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year. How delightful. If anyone can make New York’s high capacity offense seem claustrophobic, it’s a sun-blotting canopy who stands 7 feet, 3 inches tall and glides like a breeze.

Wemby’s defense already makes him an All-Star, but it’s his offense that can make him the best player on the planet. Right now it’s a tantalizing torrent of 3-point shots, difficult (albeit untouchable) 2-point fallaways, ingenious passing, and paint touches that yield a 70.4 percent field goal percentage. 

The decision to sign Chris Paul was a stroke of genius. Assuming the critical but oft-thankless role of a sage guardrail, Paul can streamline on-court opportunities Wemby didn’t sniff last season. He maps the court, directs traffic, and delivers timely passes that lead to quality looks. This season, Paul has assisted 34 of Wembanyma’s 3s. That’s the most between any teammates in the league. 

San Antonio is far from where it wants to be, but Christmas Day is a chance to showcase the sizable progress it’s already made. The core pieces are coalescing, with Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell, Julian Champagnie, and Jeremy Sochan all proving their long-term mettle. 

It’ll be fun to watch them square off against a Knicks team that’s already reached a final stage, of sorts. New York is what it is. And what it is, is an efficient, unforgiving five-out offense that’s starting to figure things out on the defensive end. Happy Holidays to everyone, particularly the coaching staff that has to devise a scheme that can slow this offense down.