NBA's 2021 Christmas Day schedule includes several former Wildcats

I hope you don’t have any plans for December 25. We’ve got some Christmas basketball to watch.

On Tuesday afternoon, the NBA announced its five-game slate for the 2021 Christmas Day schedule and several former Kentucky Wildcats will take over the big screen for the holiday. By my count, nine one-time ‘Cats will suit up on Christmas Day barring any roster changes between now and then. This will be the 14th consecutive season with a five-game Christmas Day lineup and 74th overall season the NBA plays games on Christmas.

Below is the entire schedule along with the former Kentucky players on each roster:

12:00 p.m. EST (ESPN): Hawks @ Knicks (Kevin Knox, Nerlens Noel, Immanuel Quickley, Julius Randle)
2:30 p.m. EST (ABC): Celtics (Enes Kanter) @ Bucks
5:00 p.m. EST (ABC): Warriors (Mychal Mulder) @ Suns (Devin Booker)
8:00 p.m. EST (ABC/ESPN): Nets @ Lakers (Anthony Davis, Malik Monk)
10:30 p.m. EST (ESPN): Mavericks @ Jazz

The NBA will feature five games on Christmas Day (Saturday, Dec. 25) for the 14th year in a row, with ESPN or ABC televising each matchup. pic.twitter.com/IEvOgFkXCQ

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) August 17, 2021

Anthony Davis has played in multiple Christmas Day games already. This year will be his fourth Christmas outing as a pro and third in a row as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers. Davis has played on Christmas in 2015 with the New Orleans Pelicans and then in 2019 and 2020 with the Lakers. Julius Randle will also suit up for his fourth Christmas Day outing but this will be his first with the New York Knicks. He previously played in three Christmas games from 2015-17 with the Lakers.

Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter (2019) has also played on Christmas Day as have Golden State Warriors shooting guard Mychal Mulder (2020) and Knicks center Nerlens Noel (2018 with Oklahoma City Thunder).

Devin Booker will make his Christmas Day debut after his Phoenix Suns made a surprise run to the NBA Finals over the summer. Malik Monk will do the same with the Lakers after spending his first four seasons with the Charlotte Hornets.

But what I’m most looking forward to is a rematch of the 2021 Eastern Conference first-round meeting between the Atlanta Hawks and the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. The Hawks won that series handily, 4-1, a few months back as the franchise made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals before falling to the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks.

The return of Trae Young to MSG should be quite the show and it should be even more exciting from a Big Blue Nation perspective as Immanuel Quickley and hopefully Kevin Knox make their Christmas Day debuts. Add Randle and Noel into the mix for New York and that game will be a must-watch for Kentucky fans.

“Anytime you get a Christmas Day it’s always an honor,” Randle told Malik Andrews on Tuesday during The Jump. “Those are the games that you want to be a part of. Those are definitely the games that the NBA highlights. So the fact that you get a Christmas Day game is a huge honor. Being the fact that it’s Atlanta, for me it’s another game. It’s all a part of the process of our season and what we want to build to be where we want to be at by the end of the season. Everything is game-by-game obviously, there’s a lot of anticipation and all that type of stuff because of the first-round series but I’m just looking forward to being able to have that experience of playing on Christmas in front of my family and friends.”

The NBA plans to announce the entirety of the 2021-22 season schedule on Friday, Aug. 20 at 3 p.m. EST. The league is embracing this season as the 75th Anniversary of its history, which will headline the first few days of the regular season. The first four days of the season (Oct. 19-22) will feature eight nationally televised games loaded with former MVPs and playoff teams. The regular season is expected to run through April 10, 2022, with the 2022 All-Star Game taking place on Feb. 20.