[Youngmisuk] Bronny James, 21, doesn’t remember a time when he didn’t watch his father play on Christmas… “Time is about to come where I might be the one away and these guys are going to be home [without me],” Bronny said. “So, it’s something that we got to figure out.”
“You wake up in Room 736 and you forget that it’s Christmas,” Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told ESPN of what it’s like to play a road game on Christmas. “And you look at your text from Eric Hausen [Warriors vice president of team operations] saying, ‘Merry Christmas.’ And you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s Christmas.’ You go down for your meeting in the third-floor ballroom, and everybody says ‘Merry Christmas’ and you do the scouting report and it’s just bizarre.
“You go to the arena, there’s always a gift from [NBA commissioner] Adam Silver, which is nice. And then you play and everybody in the arena is festive because they’re coming from their Christmas morning and you’re thinking about your own family and wishing you were at home. But that’s the deal. That’s what we sign up for.
“We do a huge dinner if it’s an afternoon game,” Rivers said. “If it’s the last game of the day, it’s just a s—ty day. As far as you spend time waiting around during the day at home and then you go to the game.”
One of Draymond Green’s favorite Christmas memories came during his indefinite suspension for striking Jusuf Nurkic in 2023. Green was frustrated, contemplated retirement and had to rediscover his drive for basketball.
But during that 12-game suspension, Green got to spend a truly merry Christmas at home with his kids and family – something he said was good for his soul at the time.
“That was great. It was actually f—ing amazing,” Green told ESPN. “Usually it’s weird because Christmas Day is not like what you remember as a kid, where you spend with your family. We’ve been on the road [five times, once when Green was suspended]. I know my 5-year-old’s first Christmas, I was gone.”