Not to spoil your Christmas presents early, but you’re going to be getting LeBron James vs. Luka Doncic.
The NBA schedule is expected to be released in the next week, which usually means leaks of some marquee games will come out over the next few days. Marc Stein started that off with news of the Lakers at Mavericks on Christmas.
The first draft of next season's NBA schedule has Lakers at Dallas/LeBron at Luka on Christmas Day, league sources tell me.
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) August 13, 2022
Changes are still possible before the full schedule officially drops next week but Christmas games usually hold.
More NBA from me: https://t.co/LGN9cVpeGP
The NBA traditionally has five Christmas Day games, which more casual fans see as the unofficial opening day of the season. Those games traditionally include a Finals rematch, so expect Boston at Golden State to be another of the five games that day, although that has not been reported or made official yet.
The NBA also traditionally has Christmas to itself on the sports calendar, but this year there are three NFL games that day to compete with.
We have known of only one other game on the NBA schedule, the Miami Heat will play the San Antonio Spurs in Mexico City.
The NBA schedule is coming out this week but with some real challenges for schedule makers with both the Kevin Durant and Donovan Mitchell trade situations still unsettled. For example, how often should Brooklyn be on national television (even without Durant they could have Kyrie Irving and likely will have Ben Simmons)? What about the Knicks, who have Jalen Brunson know but could add an All-Star in Mitchell?
Expect more schedule leaks in the coming days before an official release of the entire schedule later in the week.
