Bah… Humbug!

While I’m not a fan of Christmas in July… I’ve now come to loathe Christmas in August. It’s almost like the NBA realizes this is their slowest week of the now year-round schedule and thought “What would bring joy to our mass of fans in the dead heat of summer? Oh… we know! The new schedule tied up in a bow… with a big dose of Christmas Day Games cheer!” Well, I’ve had enough.

Bah, humbug to you sirs!

Yes, the National Basketball Association released some of the highlighted matchups for the 2017-2018 season this week, featuring a few of the Opening Night games as well as the five Christmas Day distractions. And, yes, for the third straight year… the Cleveland Cavaliers will spend the holiday with the Golden State Warriors. At least they’ve alternated locations since the Cavs were able to bring joy to Cleveland with a championship in 2016, but traveling during the holidays is never fun for anyone.

Christmas Day 2015 saw the wine & gold having Christmas by the Bay, as they came up just shy of handing the Dubs what would have been only their second loss of the season, 89-83 in a defense-heavy brick-fest (you can reminisce with David Wood’s recap here). While, last season… Kyrie Irving poured so much coal into Klay Thompson’s stocking, as he cooly hit this game winner… (even KI haters should still enjoy this)

The Cavs pulled that one off, 109-108, in what designated Xmas re-capper DW referred to as Game 8. Poor David… he’s literally the Bob Cratchit of C:tB, always working on the holiday. He even covered the 2014 Christmas Day game, which featured the return of LeBron James to South Beach to face Dwayne Wade and the rest of his former Miami Heat teammates. It was an inauspicious occasion, as the Cavs gift wrapped a win for their hosts, 101-91, with a slew of turnovers. LBJ seemed distracted and shortly after wound up taking his now mythic fortnight hiatus from the game.

So, why am I complaining about the Cavs on Christmas? After all, the NBA has been scheduling Christmas Day games ever since the New York Knicks beat the Providence Steamrollers on December 25th, 1947, 89-75. They’ve only missed one holiday… in 1998 when a lockout cancelled half of the season. Playing on Christmas has become the ultimate equivalent of relevance in the League. Chances are, if your team is working the holiday… they’re probably a playoff team, and possibly even have a shot at a title. Do I enjoy that relevance? For sure. But, I’d prefer to just enjoy my Christmas a little more to be honest.

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with interspersing the traditions of opening presents, spending time with family, building snowmen (depending on where you are), and carving up the roast beast for Christmas dinner with a slate of roundball contests on the flat screen… however, I’d rather do those things minus the ghosts of basketball past, present and future hovering ominously over the proceedings.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

The Cavs have played on 13 Christmases. Eight of those came during years when LeBron James has been on the roster. They are 7-6 in those games.

They played their inaugural Christmas Day game as an expansion franchise in 1970 (I was just six months old, so I missed this one). In front of a massive crowd of 2,713 fans at the Cincinnati Gardens, the Cavs got blown out 117-100 by the Cincinnati Royals to drop to 3-34 on their first campaign.

There were a few random appearances through the 70s and 80s, featuring teams like The Miracle of Richfield squad, the colorful antics of World B. Free, and the MJ stymied Lenny Wilkens teams. But, then the Cavs hit a dry spell for 14 years… until the arrival of LeBron in 2003 made Cleveland relevant enough to partake in the Christmas party once again.

My humbuggery was different back then. At first, I desperately wanted the Cavs to get recognized and rewarded with the national holiday spotlight… but came to loathe the favoritism shown toward the bigger city franchises and the unwillingness of pundits at large to embrace any Cleveland teams (outside of the Browns) on a larger stage. Who needed this nonsense anyway? I’d just resign myself to watching the Knicks, Bulls, Lakers, Celtics and Pistons while I sipped my egg nog and noshed my Christmas ham.

Then, LBJ started a run on Cleveland Christmas Day games that became almost an annual event in 2003, when the rookie sensation scored 34 points in a thrilling overtime loss to the Orlando Magic 113-101. It was exciting to see the Cavs back at the Christmas table for a while, feasting on hype and adoration as the young King began hunting for his crown. I even had one of my favorite Christmas Day memories ever when I took my then nine-year-old son to see LeBron and the Cavs take on Kobe and the defending champion Lakers in the infamous “foam finger shower” game. It was a holiday delight to watch the Cavs prevail 102-87 amidst a roiling sea of disgruntled Laker fans who started re-gifting their L.A. foam finger giveaways to the officials on the floor after they ejected Lamar Odom for scuffling with Mo Williams.

Yet, the memory of good holiday tidings only made the absence of them in the coming years more somber. When LeBron left in 2010, the Cavs were discarded from yuletide viewing as quickly as leftover fruitcake. For four Christmases, I watched reruns of Rankin/Bass classics and A Christmas Story instead of trying to stomach my way through a Heat infused holiday.

The Ghosts of Christmas Present

With LeBron’s return came the return of Christmas Day games to Cleveland. However, with them has arrived the specter of expectation and the urgency of window positioning. Maybe it’s because LBJ’s birthday falls just five days after the holiday, or maybe it’s because of his role as a Christmas fixture at the point of the season when fans really start paying attention to the NBA, but the Christmas Day game always seems to be a benchmark for expert extrapolation on Bron’s legacy and championship prospects.

It’s this pressure that takes some of the fun out of these holiday games for me. Give me a relaxing Christmas Day with the family, enjoying competitive but fun NBA games that don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. And, to be clear, they typically don’t mean much… except when it comes to the ongoing tete-a-tete between Cleveland and Golden State. There’s already enough rhetoric from this continuing saga to stuff a thousand Christmas geese… do we really need more? It’s a microscope to put a fine point on not only the white elephant exchange of unpleasantries between these two teams, but also the near inevitability that it will happen all over again next year…

unless…

This brings me to the most annoying part of this year’s Christmas Day game. The inherent drama of it all. One of two things will have occurred by December 25th (especially since the moratorium to trade off season free agents ends about 10 days earlier). Either Kyrie Irving will be playing for another team (possibly even another team playing on Christmas like the Knicks or the Timberwolves)… or Kyrie Irving will be disgruntled and still playing for the Cavs. If he’s still with the team, ABC will no doubt have the Steph/Kyrie video from Harrison Barnes’ wedding cued up on repeat, along with a myriad of other clips and quotes that surface between now and then. If he’s not, the focus will be squarely on how the Cavs got forced into trading him, and where will LeBron go next during his impending summer of free agency.

Any deviations from those storylines will consist of odes to Kevin Durant’s greatness, the latest in the Steve Kerr spine saga, clip packages of Draymond Green’s attempts to punk the Cavs on social media and a steady dose of Steph Curry anti-perspirant commercials…

Gross.

Seriously… I think I’d rather drag Jacob Marley’s chains around all day.

The Ghosts of Christmas Future

On the other hand… I find myself at a crossroads with regard to the future of Christmas Day games. While I’m squarely in the camp that believes LeBron will sign a deal to remain and retire in Cleveland, there’s still the possibility that Dan Gilbert could Scrooge this up royally. So much depends on not only how the Kyrie situation plays out… but also when it plays out, and whether or not Dan continues to pay a premium to keep the Christmas presents coming.

In the off chance that this is LeBron’s last Christmas in a Cavs uniform (ugly as the new ones may be), and assuming Kyrie is gone… it could be a long wait before we see another holiday game featuring a Cleveland team. When you figure that the last non-Bron Christmas Day game was December 25th, 1989, it makes for a fairly bleak outlook on that front.

But, “Isn’t that what you want, EG?” you might say? No more Christmas Day Games?

Well, that’s not exactly true. I do enjoy the games… I’d just enjoy seeing the Cavs in their current incarnation play someone else other than the Warriors… again. Give me the CP3/Beard (and probably Melo by that time) Rockets! Give me the Russ/PG-13 Thunder! Give me Jimmy/KAT and Wig! Give me The Alphabet! Give me IT and Hayward! Heck, give me the Zinger in the Garden! Just somebody… anybody instead of the freaking Warriors.

I realize I’ll probably miss the Cavs being on Christmas at some point in the future… either if LBJ does leave, or when he inevitably retires in a few years. But, unless this is actually the last one… I’d be okay with the NBA giving other teams a chance and letting the Cavs have a quiet holiday home with their loved ones.

Well… just 135 more shopping days until Christmas…

Bah… humbug!