The NFL might be trying to take over the NBA’s territory as the official sport of Christmas, but as they found out last week, it’s a while before they can really try. While football fans found coal in their stocking in the form of games played by backup quarterbacks, basketball fans were obviously at the top of the Nice list.
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Santa was cooking with the games, as the Knicks came back from 17 down in the fourth quarter to shock the Cavs, the Spurs beat the Thunder for the third time in less than two weeks, the Warriors outlasted the Mavs despite a showcase performance from Cooper Flagg, and Nikola Jokic’s 56-16-15 was just enough to outlast Anthony Edwards and the Wolves in overtime.
This was the 13th straight year that the Warriors have played on Christmas, which as the league’s premier team for much of that time, makes sense. The win over the Mavs moved them back above .500 for that stretch, as they now sit at 7-6. Unfortunately, that means that the Warriors haven’t caught a break in a few years.
Draymond Green has been with the Warriors his entire career, and so the only time he wasn’t working on Christmas Day was during his rookie year all the way back in 2012. Never one to hold back an opinion, he spoke on the latest episode of The Draymond Green Show about how he really feels about playing on Christmas.
“I’ve heard a lot of talk of different people about how great playing on Christmas Day is, how much of an honor it is,” he said, “and yes, it is an honor, to be considered one of the great draws that is in the NBA … to play on a day when everybody’s watching, it’s incredible, all of those things are great, but two things can be true at once.”
“Playing on Christmas Day also f****** sucks,” he succinctly added.
Draymond said that losing on Christmas Day affects your mood more than it does on other days, but that’s not the only reason he’s not the biggest fan of it.
“We are human beings, and just like everyone else, enjoy Christmas Day with our families. That kind of gets messed up for us, in their homes or on a vacation with their families making memories. We don’t get that opportunity,” the 4 time NBA champion explained.
There will definitely be a faction of people who hate this perspective, who will point out that Draymond and his fellow NBA players make millions of dollars to play a game for a living, and therefore should be grateful that they’re in this position at all.
Honestly, that opinion is tiresome. Athletes are people too, and it’s easy to see how not being with your family on Christmas would hurt, no matter who you are.
Luckily for Draymond, the Warriors won, so at least he didn’t have to deal with the sting of losing on Christmas. Still, he has two kids at home and another on the way, which is probably why he spoke so passionately here.
