Christmas NBA

The NBA schedule for the 2008-2009 season has been released, and the primary thing that should be noticed, is that there will be 5 games played on December 25th this year. In a stark change from past years, the National Basketball Association is pulling out all the stops with a full line-up of games to celebrate Christmas.

Immediately brought to mind, is that the holiday has been for years considered a football day, where you could normally see a Detroit Lions or Dallas Cowboys game while the Turkey was being cooked. It is pretty obvious that the NBA wants to do battle in both the ratings and with sports fans as they have loaded up the Christmas Day line-up with a veritable smorgasbord of offerings. A day that was once dominated by football watching could soon become a split of the ratings bonanza on a day where typical programming is relegated to either only sporting events, news, re-hashed Christmas specials, or It's a Wonderful Life.

According to the NBA schedule, the games will get started at 12pm Eastern (9am Pacific) with the Orlando Magic hosting the New Orleans Hornets. Olympic team members Dwight Howard (ORL) and Chris Paul (NO) get to face off in what will be a great match-up. ABC will be hosting a double-header over on their network, starting with the San Antonio Spurs playing the Phoenix Suns. This will pit Tim Duncan (SA) against Shaquille O'Neal and Steve Nash (PHO) in what will probably be a playoff preview. That game is followed on ABC by a re-match of this years NBA Finals, with the Boston Celtics traveling to Los Angeles to play the Lakers.
Finally, over on TNT, Gilbert Arenas and the Washington Wizards will travel to play the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James, followed by the Dallas Mavericks traveling to Portland to play the Trailblazers. Certainly this is going to be a day packed with games, and with many channels to choose from, it is going to be a big day in sports. Not only that, but the schedule makers were nice enough to give fans the superstar treatment, with many of the best players in the game all playing on the same day. This is a good move by the NBA, and maybe a sign that the league really wants to head in the right direction after some off-season hiccups. One thing is for sure though, this Christmas we are all getting basketball as a present.