NBA releases their schedule of marquee games, which does not include much of the Celtics

The NBA released the first phase of its schedule Tuesday morning, unveiling the opening week, Christmas, and MLK Day games. And one thing is pretty obvious: They don’t think the Celtics will be very good, either. 

Rockets versus Thunder kicks off the season, followed by Warriors-Lakers on NBC/Peacock. The festivities move to ESPN after that, sans Boston.

The Cavs and Knicks will go at it to start the season, followed by Spurs and Mavs. The NBA Finals rematch between OKC and Indiana will be the next night, followed by Nuggets-Warriors. 

Peacock picks things back up the following Monday, also without the Celtics 

Again, it’s the Cavs as headliners as they take on Detroit. Then it’s the Nuggets again versus Minnesota. 

The Celtics will also get Christmas day off. 

We get Cavs-Knicks again, followed by the Spurs and Thunder, Mavs and Warriors, Rockets and Lakers, and then Timberwolves-Nuggets. 

Boston finally joins the marquee matchup party on MLK Day. 

Bucks-Hawks, Thunder-Cavs, and Mavs-Knicks all lead in to Celtics-Pistons. 

By now, the teams the league expects to be good are obvious. The Cavs and Knicks are all over the schedule, which makes sense. Right now, those appear to be the top two teams in the East. The Pistons get two spots in the marquee rotation, which is a good sign for them that (a) they're expected to be a playoff team and (b) Cade Cunningham is seen as one of the league’s young stars. 

You can bet the Pistons-Celtics MLK Day game will be heavy on the history. There's no doubt that the NBA would love to welcome the Pistons back into the rivalry mix, especially since their ascent seems to coincide with the decline of the Philadelphia 76ers. 

We’re not sure how the Celtics will recover after this season, but they will theoretically be good again after this season, and having a historical foil is great marketing. Boston-New York is an easy rivalry to market, but re-living the 80’s bloodbaths between the Celtics and Pistons is a ready-made storyline. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas to talk about it somehow. 

If you can’t get the kids to watch, get the parents or grandparents to say ‘hey, sit down and watch this thing I think is awesome.’ 

It’s fine if the league wants to push some of these younger, up-and-coming teams. I like where the Pistons are, and pushing them a little more than Boston this season is a great way to signal to everyone that the Pistons are back. Giving them a push and a chance for more fans to see Cunningham will make those future Celtics-Pistons matchups some more juice. I can see that being an opening week matchup next season when Jayson Tatum is back. 

The rest of the premier slots go to the usual suspects. The Lakers and Warriors are everywhere because people still want to see LeBron James, Luka Dončić, and Steph Curry. The champion Thunder are obviously going to get a lot of love. Victor Wembanyama is must-see TV and he’ll get Dylan Harper a bit of extra air time. And then there's Cooper Flagg, who makes the Mavs interesting even as they are trying to navigate Kyrie Irving’s ACL injury and whatever sidelines Anthony Davis five times this season. 

All of this stuff can be summed up in ESPN’s promotional tweet about the new schedule. 

Rest assured, the Pacers will be fading into the background after that opening game. 

The Celtics will certainly get their fair share of national TV games. They're not going to be ignored. They are still a legacy team with international appeal, but they will lack a lot of the casual fan juice the league wants in these big games. 

If you gathered everyone in the world wearing a LeBron jersey right now and asked them who his teammates are, how many of them could get past Dončić? How many could even name him? 

Celtics fans shouldn’t take it too personally. Imagine what they're saying in Milwaukee right now? Giannis Antetokounmpo is a former MVP and in a million commercials, but the league only gave the Bucks the 1 p.m. MLK Day game against Atlanta … which also happens to be the Hawks’ only appearance in all of this as well. 

Side note: I imagine this is great news for the Atlanta front office. Trae Young wants a max extension, but the Hawks can tell him “people think we might actually be good this year and the league’s broadcast partners still don’t want to put you in the biggest TV slots.” I know I’m probably the President of the Trae Young hater’s society, so you can take this paragraph with a grain of salt. But also, if he was the star he thinks he is, he’d be on TV more. Flagg has a better MLK Day slot AND he’s playing on Christmas. 

Overall, I think the marquee portion of the schedule makes sense. LeBron and Curry are still major draws, people want to see if Flagg can become the phenom people make him out to be, and Wemby is someone we’ll be talking about forever. Nikola Jokić is always must-watch TV and Anthony Edwards is one of the league’s most marketable stars. Sprinkle in a few good teams from the east just to even things out a little and it all makes sense. 

The Celtics can take the year off from these things. If Brad Stevens can figure things out, I’ll be writing about how the Celtics are all over these marquee games again. Until then, enjoy an uninterrupted Christmas at home with the family for the first time in a decade.