LeBron Reflects On Missing Christmas With His Family For 20 Years

NBA games on Christmas Day are an amazing tradition. Some of the best regular-season games throughout the years can be attributed to Christmas matchups. Often, the league’s best teams and rivalries are on display for the world to watch, making for some incredible basketball. 

For the players, it can be a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, getting a Christmas Day game on your schedule means your team is not only entertaining but probably relevant. The best players and the best teams get to play on Christmas, and that is an honor. On the other hand, missing that special family time can be hard, especially for players who end up playing on Christmas every year. 

LeBron James is one of those players. He’s played on Christmas 20 times in his career, and will do it again this season. Here’s what LeBron had to say about the honor and difficulty of playing on Christmas.

"I'd much rather be at home with my family. But I mean, it's the game, it's the game that I love. It's a game I watched when I was a kid on Christmas Day, watching a lot of the greatest play the game on Christmas. It's always been an honor to play it. Obviously, I'm gonna be completely honest, I would like to be home on the couch with my family all throughout the day. But our number is called, so we have to go out and perform, and I look forward to it."

While LeBron might be overplaying on Christmas every year, he understands his responsibility as one of the league's top stars. With load management and rest becoming a huge issue with the new stars in the league, it is refreshing to hear LeBron acknowledge his responsibility to the fans who want to see the top talent on Christmas.