NBA Christmas Schedule Leans on LeBron, Steph While Betting on Flagg

Christmas Day, once associated exclusively with the NBA, has turned into a head-to-head battle with the NFL in recent years. Even LeBron James acknowledged that last year.

The NBA is once again turning to the trio of James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant to carry its 2025 Christmas Day slate—despite criticisms of the league’s inability to market its young stars. But there are a few interesting wrinkles in the Christmas lineup that show it’s trying to spotlight its newcomers.

NBA’s Christmas Day schedule, per ESPN’s Shams Charania: 

• Cavaliers at Knicks
• Spurs at Thunder
• Rockets at Lakers
• Mavericks at Warriors
• Timberwolves at Nuggets

While the exact times of the games aren’t finalized, Charania’s report indicates that Dallas vs. Golden State will likely take the 8 p.m. ET primetime slot. Last year, that went to Lakers vs. Warriors, which drew nearly 8 million viewers and was the most-watched regular-season game in five years.

The Warriors are an obvious choice—the playoffs showed how Curry has continued to be a draw—but slotting in the Mavericks is a massive bet on 2025 No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg. The 18-year-old has the potential to be one of the league’s next faces, but he has also yet to play a single NBA regular-season game.

His Summer League debut in July did draw significant fanfare, and was the fourth most-watched Summer League game ever on ESPN networks behind other big-name debuts like Victor Wembanyama and Zion Williamson.

The NBA rarely gambles on a young player on Christmas Day prime-time—especially against one of its guaranteed viewership draws, the Warriors. The closest comparison in recent memory may be when the league pitted Ja Morant and the Grizzlies against Golden State in 2022—though the two teams battled in the playoffs in the prior year.

The 2025 NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is also scheduled to play in his first Christmas Day game as the Thunder will host the Spurs and Wembanyama, another potential future face of the league.

Gilgeous-Alexander said last year he was “disappointed” the Thunder weren’t part of the 2024 Christmas slate, despite securing the No. 1 seed in the West in 2023.

All five Christmas games will be played on ABC for the second year in a row, which helped last year’s Christmas slate draw 87% more viewers than Christmas 2023, which aired only two of its five games on ABC. The other three were on ESPN.

The NFL has played multiple games on Christmas Day since 2022, and it will play three games in 2025—and beyond—after just two last year. 

Opening Night on NBC 

ESPN also reported on the NBA’s two opening-night games, which will feature the three aforementioned aging stars and the defending champion Thunder: The Rockets will play in Oklahoma City while the Warriors face the Lakers.

The games will also be the first on NBC since 2002. The network reclaimed NBA broadcasting rights last year as part of an 11-year, $77 billion media deal.