The NBA's marquee matchup on Christmas Day will see the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers renew their historic rivalry. This will be the first meeting between the teams this season, and the fifth time they've played on Christmas. The last time was in 2008, which happened to be the first year the league debuted special Christmas jerseys.
When the league switched its jersey supplier from Adidas to Nike in 2017, the unique Christmas threads were discontinued, much to the chagrin of many fans and players. Ahead of this season's games, LeBron James and the Lakers are leading a push to get the Christmas jerseys back in action.
Early on Christmas Eve, James quote Tweeted a video compliation of his chalk tosses on Christmas with a rhetorical question. "This was amazing!!" James wrote. "I do wish we had Xmas day uniforms across the league still. Wonder why it stopped."
This was amazing!! 💨💨💨💨🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾. I do wish we had Xmas day uniforms across the league still. Wonder why it stopped. 🤷🏾♂️ https://t.co/A73AF7Dnn0
— LeBron James (@KingJames) December 24, 2023
While James is a Christmas Day veteran, Lakers forwad Rui Hachimura, who spent his first three-plus seasons with the Washington Wizards, will be making his debut. He, too, was upset to learn about the jersey situation.
"My first time. I've been dreaming about it," Hachimura said after the Lakers' win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday. "I'm excited. Are we going to have jerseys or no? Like a Christmas jersey?" When told no, he responded, "Awwww."
It would be one thing if the league had cut back on new jerseys across the board, but they've actually increased in frequency in recent years. If you're going to churn out new City Editions each season for every single team -- most of which aren't even well-received -- surely you could bring back the beloved Christmas jerseys. The final editions featuring the cursive Christmas card font were perfect.
