The Pacers won’t be playing on Christmas

The NBA announced the national TV schedule for some prominent dates today. The Pacers will not be featured on any of them.

The Pacers haven’t played on Christmas since 2004. They only had one national TV game last season, and it was largely due to the fact that Pual George was returning to Indiana. It had little to do with the Pacers themselves.

But it still feels wrong this year that the Pacers don’t won’t be on national TV in the biggest timeslots.

Over the course of the last two days, the NBA’s national TV schedule for games on Christmas day, Martin Luther King Jr. day, and the opening week has been slowly leaked. Today, the NBA released the official schedule for all three:

The Christmas games:

And the MLK day games:

A quick scan shows that a certain Eastern Conference team that wears blue and gold will not be playing in any of these slots.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Pacers aren’t playing on MLK day. Memphis always gets a game that day, the Warriors always play LeBron that day, and the Rockets and 76ers are two premier teams. There can be few qualms with that slate of mathcups.

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Not seeing the Pacers on Christmas isn’t really that surprising either. They haven’t had a game on the holiday since 2004 when Reggie Miller and Jermaine O’Neal were both on the squad. They had a chance this year, but the Knicks always get a Christmas game and all the other games are either driven by superstars or time zones. The X-mas schedule makes sense.

But the Pacers not showing up on the opening week national TV schedule just feels wrong. The Pelicans, Wizards, and Suns all play on national TV in the opening week. Anthony Davis is a big enough star to land New Orleans a game during opening week. I get it. But the Pels are in a smaller market than the Pacers, so that’s one team that Indy could have been in over.

The Wizards are in the same boat. Victor Oladipo is better than any player on that team, but they had two all-stars last year and just added Dwight Howard. Howard is washed, but he still carries name recognition. I get it, I really do. But the Wizards over the Pacers hurts if you’re a fan.

But the Suns? The Phoenix Suns? I guess people really want to watch the number one pick versus the number three pick. That will be cool. I agree. Is that cooler than Hicks vs Knicks? Than Vic vs Paul George? Is that going to draw a bigger viewing party than a midwestern battle between the Pacers and the Bulls?

The league has brilliant marketers, so they, of course, know better than I. But it seems wrong to not have the Pacers playing just a mere one time on the biggest stage. Oh well, that’s just one more chip on the shoulders of this team. Now they have one more reason to make everyone watch.