Alien takes Manhattan! The 5 most interesting players to watch on NBA Christmas Day

Reasonable people can disagree over whether this year’s NBA Christmas Day showcase features all of the “correct” teams. (We hear, see and honor the lived experiences of fans of the Thunder, Bucks, Cavaliers, and Anyone Else Who Might Be Mad About This.) It’s tougher to argue, though, that the annual holiday extravaganza isn’t overflowing with enticing talent.

The slate includes the last three NBA champions, plus last season’s runner-up, with five top-10 offenses and four top-10 defenses. We’ll (hopefully) see as many as four Most Valuable Player winners. The quintuple-header features 10 of last season’s 15 All-NBA selections, more than 30 players who’ve made All-Star teams, and a few more who might be mere weeks away from making their first.

The NBA’s Christmas lineup should offer tons for fans to feast on: rivalries old and new, bona fide legends and new stars to get more familiar with … and, with any luck, a handful of games that stay tight late, treating those who’ve popped in between eggnog and dessert to a reminder of just how awesome highly competitive NBA basketball can be.

As we get set to tear open the presents and cut into the fruitcake, let’s take a look at the five most interesting players — to me! — on the NBA’s 2024 Christmas schedule, with one from each game. We begin with a dude who could probably put the star on top of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree without even needing to get up on his tiptoes:

Victor Wembanyama, Spurs

I find the New York Knicks’ best-in-the-league new-look offense, fueled by the two-man power trip of Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, plenty fascinating in its own right. It’d be too clever by half, though, to suggest that I’m not most interested in seeing what happens when an alien takes Manhattan.

Wembanyama is within striking distance of becoming the sixth player in NBA history to average at least 20 points and 10 rebounds per game on .600 true shooting in his second season. The rest of that list: Four Hall of Famers (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Charles Barkley, David Robinson and Shaquille O’Neal) plus the guy he’ll line up against on Wednesday (Towns).

After a rocky start to the season that saw him shoot just 41.3% from the field and 22.6% from 3-point range through the first two weeks with more turnovers than assists, Wembanyama’s been on the short list of the very best players in the league, averaging 29 points per game on 51/41/86 shooting splits to go with 10.1 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 4.1 blocks in 33.7 minutes a night. The Spurs have gone 9-6 with Wemby in the lineup during that span, outscoring opponents by 7.9 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor; he has a San Antonio squad that won just 22 games last season not just vying for a play-in berth, but within a game and a half of a top-six spot in a thickly settled Western Conference.

More overwhelming than the numbers, though, is the advancing sense that, even a couple of weeks shy of his 21st birthday, Wembanyama’s got the NBA wired — that he’s looking down at the best athletes and most skilled players in the world like Boris Diaw stepping out of his flip-flops to match Amar’e Stoudemire’s vertical leap barefoot, or Jean Girard lapping the NASCAR field while reading Camus.

Three-pointers lofted off of one foot like floaters, and one-hand lob finishes from above the box. Pulling out Shammgods in-game at 7-foot-4 and going off the glass to a teammate or to himself.

If you can dream it, chances are he can do it. And if it seems like it’s beyond your wildest imagination … well, chances are he can do that, too.

“I’m experiencing levels of freedom that I’ve never really had the chance to have before,” Wembanyama recently told reporters. “And for me, it’s also the clearest path into how to get better and how to get to the top level.”

Plays and performances that would sound like tall tales for other players, even other phenoms, become downright matter of fact. In the first two months of Wembanyama’s sophomore campaign, he’s already delivered a 50-point game, a 42-point game, a 34-point triple-double, the second 5×5 of his career — making him just the third player with multiple 5x5s since the NBA began tracking blocks and steals in 1973 — and, just this past Saturday, the first 10-block, four-3-pointer game in NBA history.

On a nightly basis, Wembanyama’s combination of size, skill and showmanship can rewrite our established understanding of what’s possible on a basketball court. The mind reels at what he might have in store, with the national spotlight all to himself, striding out to take center stage at the World’s Most Famous Arena.

“For me, it makes sense that we see creativity on the court, because I think it’s actually the best way for me to help my team,” he said. “They’re not putting me in a box. And I’m not going to, either.”

Dereck Lively II, Mavericks

The Mavericks opened the 2024-25 season bringing Lively off the bench, in deference to the alignment that helped drive Dallas’ dominant closing kick last season. You could understand why: With Daniel Gafford starting and Lively anchoring the reserve corps, the Mavs posted the NBA’s best record and fifth-best net rating over the final 20 games of the 2023-24 schedule, capped by playoff victories over the Clippers, Thunder and the Timberwolves team they’ll square off against on Christmas to earn the franchise’s first NBA Finals berth in 13 years.

After opening the new campaign an underwhelming 5-6, though, head coach Jason Kidd decided to shake things up, slotting his sophomore big man back into the first five in search of a jolt. He found it; I don’t think Lively’s going back to the bench anytime soon.

The Mavericks are 17-7 with Lively in the lineup — a 58-win pace. They are 13-4 when he starts, and outscore opponents by 12.3 points per 100 with him on the floor — the record and point differential of a 60-plus-win club. He’s got the third-highest on-court/off-court splits on the team, thanks largely to his floor-raising play on the defensive end: Dallas has allowed just 105.4 points per 100 with Lively manning the middle, a mark that would be among the league’s best over the course of the full season.

At 7-foot-1 and 230 pounds with a 7-foot-7 wingspan and shocking lateral quickness for a human that big, Lively devours space in the half-court; he looks equally comfortable banging on the block to control the boards and hovering out to the perimeter to envelop an opposing jitterbug guard with the encroaching-dread realization that, this time, the switch isn’t a mismatch.

Dallas limits both shots at the rim and above-the-break 3s at top-five levels with the Duke product lurking. Watching him work frequently leaves the impression that someone has just thrown a sheet over the top of an offensive possession to put it to sleep, like a parakeet in a cage.

Combine that with a streamlined offensive game — 71.3% from the floor, sixth in transition scoring efficiency, 15th in points per possession as a roll man in the pick-and-roll, 16th in dunks — and you’ve got an extremely valuable player who serves as an accelerant for incendiary Dallas superstars Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving. Mavericks lineups featuring both Luka and Kyrie have outscored opponents by a just-fine 4.5 points per 100 without Lively. With him, though? That soars to a stomping 23.6 points per 100.

That alone would be enough reason to get amped over Lively. What’s even more exciting, though, are the flashes he shows of breaking out of the circumscribed confines of the “Tyson Chandler 2.0” role in which he’s so effective — the moments where he throws a deft high-low pass with just the right weight and balance, where he pockets the dribble handoff and allows himself the indulgence of an extra dribble and spin, where he decides to take this puppy out on the highway and see how she handles with the top down.

They don’t happen often, which is perfectly reasonable on a team with championship aspirations led by two of the most efficient and effective on-ball facilitators in the world. When they do, though, they afford a glimpse of what it looks like when a big fella with an uncommon combination of fluidity and ferocity gets to color outside the lines a little. It makes for some pretty pictures — and possibly a future to look forward to for a Mavericks team that’s already got plenty to be thrilled about in the here and now.

Joel Embiid, 76ers

After last week’s ahead-of-schedule return from a sinus fracture — the latest in a now-“Ulysses”-length list of maladies that seemingly only happen to him — it’s looking like Embiid will suit up, and mask up, for Philadelphia’s Christmas Day tilt against the Celtics. (Here’s hoping he sticks around longer than he did against Wemby and the Spurs on Monday.) Considering that’s only happened eight times this season, that’s worth celebrating … especially considering he’s scored 30-plus twice in four games since returning, leaving open the possibility that we’re not yet done with the version of Embiid who can boss the game at a level rivaled by only a scant few people alive:

I’m not sure Embiid fits the definition of a tragic figure that your English lit professor would lay out, but I think it’s fair to say that no contemporary NBA star has suffered more slings, arrows or outrageous fortune. That this latest addition to the annals of his medical misery came after he devoted his summer to winning Olympic gold with Team USA, and that the state of his haunted left knee now seems perpetually open-ended, feels all the more brutal given everything he’s had to overcome.

“It’s been extremely depressing,” Embiid told ESPN’s Tim Bontemps earlier this month, after returning from a seven-game absence due to swelling in that knee. “I would love to play every single game, every single minute, but sometimes your body just says, ‘No,’ and you can’t do nothing about it. All you can do is just keep working to fix it and get better.”

One game after that return against the Bulls: the sinus fracture against the Pacers, sending him back on the shelf.

“I can imagine that he can feel like the black cloud is over him a little bit,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse told reporters. “He just keeps running into something, really, unfortunately.”

What’s most endearing about Embiid, though — to me, at least — is that he also just keeps persevering. That, after missing his first two seasons with broken bones in his foot, he’s put together a Hall of Fame career. That, after tearing his meniscus twice, he still seized what might be his only opportunity to go for gold.

That, after suffering a third facial fracture — which, to be clear, is three more than basically every other NBA player ever — he came back in a week to drop 34 points with nine assists in 31 minutes. That, at a time when it’d be tough to fault him for staying down, he keeps trying to get back up … and, yes, sometimes screwing up by letting his emotions get the best of him. Who among us, right?

“I want to play,” Embiid said Saturday. “I mean, it’s tough, especially the freak (injuries). It’s already hard enough getting hit in the face four times. It’s kind of … it’s still unbelievable. But I want to play. So if I can be on the floor, even at 50%, I’m gonna try to do that.”

Fifty percent of Embiid likely won’t be enough to take down a Celtics team this good — especially not in Boston, where Embiid hasn’t played in nearly 20 months, since the disastrous Game 7 of the 2023 Eastern Conference semifinals, which saw him go a dismal 5-for-18 from the field in a blowout loss that marked the end of the line in Philly for Doc Rivers and (eventually) James Harden.

Standing toe-to-toe with this version of the Celtics would require the Sixers resembling the optimized operation they’d imagined over the summer, with Paul George joining Embiid and Tyrese Maxey in a star-studded trio capable of matching the best of the best. As it stands, that hotly anticipated Big Three has played just 82 minutes together across five games, barely mustering one point per possession on offense; finding a playmaking rhythm this soon, against this opponent, might be too much to ask.

That we can ask it of Embiid at all, though, represents a step forward — some measure of progress in the perpetual journey to get out from under that black cloud and lead Philly, and himself, to someplace brighter.

“It’s kind of hard when you get in those moments to not feel bad about yourself, especially when you know who you are and what you can accomplish,” Embiid recently told reporters when asked how he’s tried to deal with all of his depressing medical issues. “But, you know, it’s just not the way it is.”

Whether Embiid’s new normal can include a return to the kind of MVP status that propels the Sixers out of their early-season doldrums and back into postseason contention remains to be seen. Neither he nor the team can control where they’ll end up, though; all they can do is deal with what’s next. In this case, that’s the hated Celtics, in Boston, in front of the entire basketball-watching world. If you were looking for a launchpad to leave behind a disastrous start in pursuit of greater heights — and a megawatt opportunity to remind everyone exactly what kind of world-breaker you are — you could do a hell of a lot worse.

Dennis Schröder, Warriors

Getting traded mid-season isn’t easy, even if you’re going from a team expected to contend for the No. 1 overall pick to a team expected to just straight-up contend. But getting traded mid-season and being expected to be the missing piece that can plug the biggest hole on that would-be contender? That’s an awfully tough spot to be in … and it’s precisely the one in which Schröder now finds himself.

Golden State enters Wednesday’s meeting with the Lakers ranked 20th in offensive efficiency, scoring just 111.6 points per 100. When Stephen Curry’s on the court, though, the Warriors score 120.2 points per 100. The disastrous offensive drop-off when Steph’s off the floor? That’s where Schröder is expected to come in — to provide the secondary scoring threat that the Dubs have lacked since their 2022 championship season, with The Jordan Poole Saga, Andrew Wiggins’ decline and Klay Thompson’s exit leaving Steve Kerr and Co. searching for more answers.

“His ball-handling — I think he’s going to help Steph, Brandin (Podziemski) and particularly when Steph is not on the court,” Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. told reporters during his post-trade news conference. “We think his ability to play pick-and-roll, create offense, get us into stuff, just that added dimension offensively will give us a boost, which is just something we need. … It’s no secret we need to improve offensively.”

To put it mildly, it hasn’t been a seamless transition. Starting in the backcourt next to Curry, Schröder shot 2-for-12 from the field in his debut, a 51-point defeat at the hands of the Grizzlies that stands as the biggest blowout in the NBA this season; went 3-for-8 in Golden State’s weekend win over the Wolves; and went 3-for-9 in Monday’s loss to the Pacers. He’s got 11 assists against seven turnovers in 80 minutes as a Warrior, and the offense has looked rocky both when Curry and Schröder share the floor and when Schröder runs the show solo — an inauspicious opening, but one that Kerr doesn’t seem too concerned about.

“Dennis looked like a guy on a new team,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters after the lopsided Memphis loss. “It’s always difficult to get traded mid-season and play with a brand new group and have different terminology and all that stuff.”

Especially when the new group very famously doesn’t necessarily lean into the kind of high-volume pick-and-roll play that has been Schröder’s bread-and-butter throughout a 12-year NBA career and his stellar play at the point for the German national team … although, to hear one longtime adherent to that system tell it, that’s kind of the whole point of bringing him in.

“I don’t think he was necessarily brought here to fit,” Warriors star Draymond Green said. “We play a certain style of basketball he does not really play. We need someone who can do the things he does. I’m looking forward to us adjusting to him. We have to adjust to him because he’s bringing something this team needs. To just make him fall in line with what we do, we’d be wasting our time.”

It’ll be interesting to see how the adjustment process for both Schröder and the Warriors progresses against a Lakers team that had looked awful defensively before starting to turn it around a couple of weeks ago after head coach JJ Redick shook up his rotations (for example: Max Christie into the starting lineup, Dalton Knecht out of it) and some of L.A.’s defensive coverages. If Schröder can get cooking against a franchise for whom he once started — one that offered him an $84 million extension that he declined and that he later rejoined for the minimum, because what is life if not weird and grand — and that can be hit-or-miss at the point of attack, it could go a long way toward easing the ambient tensions that seem to be emanating from the Bay in the face of a 3-9 stretch that has reduced early-season title hopes to rubble.

If he continues to misfire and struggle to get in where he fits in, though, it might be time to start wondering if he’s the right man for the extremely big job he was imported to do — and whether the Warriors’ hopes of plugging their massive offensive hole might require an even bigger move.

Nikola Jokić, Nuggets

The operating theory here, since the start of the season, has been that as long as the Nuggets have Nikola Jokić, they have enough to remain in the hunt for a deep playoff run — and, potentially, a return to the Finals.

I will grant that it’s not exactly splitting the atom to hang your analysis on the premise that the Serbian giant is extremely good at basketball, and strong enough to carry even an entire roster of underwhelming teammates an exceedingly long distance. But what leaning on Jokić lacks in originality, it makes up for by being, y’know, right: The three-time MVP is averaging a career-high 30.9 points, 12.5 rebounds and 9.7 assists per game, shooting a career-best 51.4% from 3-point range, and on pace to become the third player ever to average 30 points per game on a true shooting percentage (which factors in 2-point, 3-point and free-throw accuracy) north of .650 while using at least 30% of his team’s possessions. (The other two: Curry and Embiid.)

It’s because of Jokić that the Nuggets have a top-five offense; it’s because of Jokić that Denver has weathered a disappointing start from Jamal Murray, an early injury to Aaron Gordon, an inconsistent second unit and leaky transition defense to remain in the hunt for home-court advantage in the Western Conference. This is the nature of true, inarguable, incandescent superstardom; players like this simply will not allow you to suck.

The question, though: How much better than that can these Nuggets be, even with Jokić playing at this level offensively?

In the last two weeks, the Nuggets have:

Lost to the lowly Wizards, in a game in which they trailed nearly the entire way;

Barely squeaked past a Kings team that appears to be in freefall;

Lost to the lowly Trail Blazers, allowing the NBA’s 28th-ranked offense to torch them for 126 points and getting aced out on an Anfernee Simons buzzer-beater;

Needed overtime to edge past the utterly dilapidated Pelicans, who were without Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, lost Trey Murphy III late in the third quarter, and still led in the final minute of regulation before Denver eventually wrested the game away.

The glass-half-full view: Man, these Nuggets sure know how to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat!

The more pessimistic lens: A team intent on fighting for its spot among the league’s best shouldn’t be in such hot water against such shaky competition so damn often … and as massive a burden as Jokić has to bear in creating shots and propping up the offense, he also bears at least some responsibility for holding down the fort on the defensive end and galvanizing the team when things break badly.

Two things can be true: Jokić is in the midst of a fifth straight season as, at worst, one of the three best basketball players in the world … and if this Nuggets team as currently constructed is to be anything more than a middle-of-the-pack also-ran in the West, he will have to give more.

Yes, Denver should be getting more out of Murray, and it should be getting more out of Michael Porter Jr., and it should be aggressively pursuing another top-line talent (Jimmy Butler? Zach LaVine?) to either push that offense up toward the top of the NBA, fortify that middling defense, or both. But life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans, and while he waits for Jamal, MPJ or Calvin Booth to solve the problems the Nuggets are facing as the 2023 title continues to recede from view, the cleanest path available to Jokić is the one of self-reliance.

Giannis Antetokounmpo rescued the Bucks from the depths of 2-8 hell by simply refusing to accept it; now it’s time for Jokić to do likewise. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and if Jokić wants to keep wearing it, and if the Nuggets want to avoid getting swept away with the rising tide out West, “as good as ever” just might not be good enough.