The Boston Celtics’ divorce from longtime star Jaylen Brown dominated headlines all summer. The fact that his first game back in Boston wasn’t featured in the NBA’s opening week or Christmas Day slates is dominating them now.
In the days leading up to the first bits of the NBA schedule release, many fans and media members speculated that the league would feature the marquee matchup on one of its premiere stages. Now that we know that the Celtics will open their season on Oct. 20 at 3 p.m. ET in Detroit against the Pistons and then host the New York Knicks three days later at 7 p.m. ET, before taking on the Miami Heat at 2:30 p.m. on Christmas Day, it’s clear that that won’t be the case.
Is anyone really surprised by this?
Sure, it sounds like a Jaylen Brown and the Philadelphia 76ers vs. Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics matchup should be the main event on a stacked day of marquee games. In reality, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, it wouldn’t make sense for the league to waste that game on a day where they’re already going to have tons of eyes on their product.
Opening week is always a huge draw. Fans are simply excited for basketball to be back and are going to tune into whatever games are on national TV, regardless if there’s any deep-rooted storyline woven into it.
The same can be said for Christmas Day, another key date on the NBA calendar. Basketball on Christmas has become a tradition in many households around the world, in a similar fashion to football on Thanksgiving (and now Christmas, thanks to Roger Goodell’s greed).
Celtics vs. 76ers, Jaylen vs. Jayson is going to have tons of juice
Adam Silver and his team of schedule-makers could put the first Celtics vs. 76ers game in Boston on a random Tuesday in January and it’ll draw huge ratings. Honestly, whichever national network winds up with the rights could build up a slate of games around the matchup -- that’s how much hype will be behind it.
From Brown’s messy exit, to Tatum’s not-so-subtle jab at his former co-star during a speech to campers at his basketball camp, to Brown’s newfound desire to learn from his 76ers teammates, the shots are being fired and the storyline continues to be built.
Like, Amazon Prime could put together WWE-style video package to run during commerical breaks in the weeks leading up to the matchup to build anticpation. There probably hasn’t been a former teammate matchup with as much 7uice as this one since Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook faced off for the first time after Durant left the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016.
You could point ot Kyrie Irving returing to TD Garden for the first time, too, but he ducked the first game and didn’t actually play a game in the building until there were no fans in the stands in the first season post-pandemic.
I probalby missed some others, but yeah, there’s going to be tons of eyes on this and the league didn’t need to burn a big-stage spot on this game.
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