Reasonable people can disagree over whether this year’s NBA Christmas Day showcase features all of the “correct” teams. (We hear, see and honor the lived experiences of fans of the Thunder, Bucks, Cavaliers, and Anyone Else Who Might Be Mad About This.) It’s tougher to argue, though, that the annual holiday extravaganza isn’t overflowing with enticing talent.
The slate includes the last three NBA champions, plus last season’s runner-up, with five top-10 offenses and four top-10 defenses. We’ll (hopefully) see as many as four Most Valuable Player winners. The quintuple-header features 10 of last season’s 15 All-NBA selections, more than 30 players who’ve made All-Star teams, and a few more who might be mere weeks away from making their first.
The NBA’s Christmas lineup should offer tons for fans to feast on: rivalries old and new, bona fide legends and new stars to get more familiar with … and, with any luck, a handful of games that stay tight late, treating those who’ve popped in between eggnog and dessert to a reminder of just how awesome highly competitive NBA basketball can be.
As we get set to tear open the presents and cut into the fruitcake, let’s take a look at the five most interesting players — to me! — on the NBA’s 2024 Christmas schedule, with one from each game. We begin with a dude who could probably put the star on top of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree without even needing to get up on his tiptoes:
Victor Wembanyama, Spurs
I find the New York Knicks’ best-in-the-league new-look offense, fueled by the two-man power trip of Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, plenty fascinating in its own right. It’d be too clever by half, though, to suggest that I’m not most interested in seeing what happens when an alien takes Manhattan.
Wembanyama is within striking distance of becoming the sixth player in NBA history to average at least 20 points and 10 rebounds per game on .600 true shooting in his second season. The rest of that list: Four Hall of Famers (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Charles Barkley, David Robinson and Shaquille O’Neal) plus the guy he’ll line up against on Wednesday (Towns).
After a rocky start to the season that saw him shoot just 41.3% from the field and 22.6% from 3-point range through the first two weeks with more turnovers than assists, Wembanyama’s been on the short list of the very best players in the league, averaging 29 points per game on 51/41/86 shooting splits to go with 10.1 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 4.1 blocks in 33.7 minutes a night. The Spurs have gone 9-6 with Wemby in the lineup during that span, outscoring opponents by 7.9 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor; he has a San Antonio squad that won just 22 games last season not just vying for a play-in berth, but within a game and a half of a top-six spot in a thickly settled Western Conference.
More overwhelming than the numbers, though, is the advancing sense that, even a couple of weeks shy of his 21st birthday, Wembanyama’s got the NBA wired — that he’s looking down at the best athletes and most skilled players in the world like Boris Diaw stepping out of his flip-flops to match Amar’e Stoudemire’s vertical leap barefoot, or Jean Girard lapping the NASCAR field while reading Camus.
Three-pointers lofted off of one foot like floaters, and one-hand lob finishes from above the box. Pulling out Shammgods in-game at 7-foot-4 and going off the glass to a teammate or to himself.
If you can dream it, chances are he can do it. And if it seems like it’s beyond your wildest imagination … well, chances are he can do that, too.
“I’m experiencing levels of freedom that I’ve never really had the chance to have before,” Wembanyama recently told reporters. “And for me, it’s also the clearest path into how to get better and how to get to the top level.”
Plays and performances that would sound like tall tales for other players, even other phenoms, become downright matter of fact. In the first two months of Wembanyama’s sophomore campaign, he’s already delivered a 50-point game, a 42-point game, a 34-point triple-double, the second 5×5 of his career — making him just the third player with multiple 5x5s since the NBA began tracking blocks and steals in 1973 — and, just this past Saturday, the first 10-block, four-3-pointer game in NBA history.
On a nightly basis, Wembanyama’s combination of size, skill and showmanship can rewrite our established understanding of what’s possible on a basketball court. The mind reels at what he might have in store, with the national spotlight all to himself, striding out to take center stage at the World’s Most Famous Arena.
“For me, it makes sense that we see creativity on the court, because I think it’s actually the best way for me to help my team,” he said. “They’re not putting me in a box. And I’m not going to, either.”
Dereck Lively II, Mavericks
The Mavericks opened the 2024-25 season bringing Lively off the bench, in deference to the alignment that helped drive Dallas’ dominant closing kick last season. You could understand why: With Daniel Gafford starting and Lively anchoring the reserve corps, the Mavs posted the NBA’s best record and fifth-best net rating over the final 20 games of the 2023-24 schedule, capped by playoff victories over the Clippers, Thunder and the Timberwolves team they’ll square off against on Christmas to earn the franchise’s first…
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