On August 10, The Athletic’s Shams Charania leaked on his personal Twitter account the always anticipated slate of Christmas Day games for the upcoming 2023-24 campaign, and, to the surprise of many, the Memphis Grizzlies are not expected to take part in the festivities.
Despite being one of the best young teams currently in the association, having finished as the second seed in the Western Conference standings for the second consecutive season, and having just participated in their first-ever appearance playing on Santa’s big day last year, the league’s decision-makers have opted to leave Taylor Jenkins’ club off their holly, jolly schedule.
Grizzlies could have made for a great Christmas Day participant in 2023-24
Though the vast majority of the 10 teams chosen to be featured on December 25 are certainly capable of putting on an exhilarating show for viewers, when pondering on the hypothetical contests Memphis could have been a part of it becomes more and more apparent that fans were robbed of witnessing something much sweeter than a Chocolate Yule Log.
With this in mind, here are four hypothetical matchups faithful followers of the Grizzlies organization and basketball fans, in general, will be missing out on during this year’s Christmas Day NBA programming.
4. Memphis Grizzlies vs Boston Celtics
This year, the league has the Boston Celtics scheduled to square off against their long-time rivals in the Los Angeles Lakers which undoubtedly is always an exciting matchup for viewers to tune into considering their historical ties to one another.
That said, should things not have played out so perfectly, an outing against the Grizzlies could have been quite an entertaining one considering the fact that they recently snatched away a player in Marcus Smart via offseason trade who, for the better part of nine seasons, was deemed by many as being the “heart and soul” of Celtics basketball.
Return games are always a sure bet to register high emotions from both players and fans alike and a faceoff against the tough-nosed point guard’s former employers under the bright lights of Xmas NBA play could have made for one of the more attention-grabbing games of the day.