OKC Thunder Snubbed From NBA's Christmas Day Lineup

Next season will mark the fifth-straight year OKC misses out on a Christmas Day game.

The Oklahoma City Thunder will not be playing in the NBA’s Christmas Day games for the fifth consecutive season.

Each season, 10 teams are selected to play on the NBA’s marquee day. The league showcases those teams with five games spanning the entire day.

The Thunder have one of the most intriguing young teams in the league and could have been playing in a Christmas Day game. While a Christmas Day game may be in the near future for OKC, it will be at least one more season until they play on that stage.

There will be an even split of five teams from each conference playing on Christmas this year. The day starts with two eastern conference matchups as the Milwaukee Bucks visit the New York Knicks and the defending conference champion Miami Heat host reigning MVP Joel Embiid’s Philadelphia 76ers.

The Boston Celtics will visit the Los Angeles Lakers for the day’s third game. Then, the Dallas Mavericks see the new-look Phoenix Suns in a 2022 playoffs rematch before the Denver Nuggets host the Golden State Warriors in a battle of the two most recent NBA champions.

The competition will be tough moving forward, but a successful season could put the Thunder in a prime position to crack the Christmas Day schedule in 2024. Although it has been a few years, the franchise is no stranger to playing on December 25.

OKC played on Christmas Day for nine straight seasons from 2010-2018, hosting five of those games. With superstars Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant leading OKC in most of those seasons, the team holds a 6-3 record on Christmas.

After a successful 2022-23 season, the Thunder should expect more respect from the NBA’s schedule makers despite missing out on Christmas Day. The Thunder could see a significant increase in nationally televised games next season.

Since trading away Westbrook and Paul George in 2019, the Thunder’s national TV appearances in regular season games have been scarce. Although it is disappointing for the Thunder to miss out on Christmas this season, the team is poised to make many appearances in the near future.

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