For five seasons from 2012-16, NBA teams who got the honor of playing one of the five Christmas Day games got an extra treat by wearing a custom jersey for the day. Both LeBron James — on the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers — as well as the Los Angeles Lakers, got to experience all five of those unique jerseys.
That included two iterations of the Christmas card jerseys, a color rush type uniform and the infamous sleeved jerseys. But when the NBA switched from Adidas to Nike as the jersey creator for the NBA in 2017, they chose not to continue the tradition, despite some rumblings from players each and every year.
LeBron, who is still among the league elite eight years later in 2024 with the Lakers, is the latest player to call for a return to unique Christmas Day jerseys. He did so on social media ahead of L.A.’s Christmas Day bout with Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors:
Not having Xmas day unis anymore really sucks! That was a great feeling walking into the locker room and seeing those. It was literally like receiving a 🎁! Whomp whomp! 🤷🏾♂️
— LeBron James (@KingJames) December 25, 2024
Usually, when a player of LeBron’s stature calls for something, it tends to happen in the NBA. But with Christmas jerseys being requested for years now and still not happening, it’s possible that Nike simply doesn’t want to copy a concept created by their biggest rival in Adidas.
But if Nike did ultimately opt to bring back the Christmas jerseys in some capacity, it would be a hugely popular decision. The NBA needs anything they can get to differentiate regular season games from one another and make them unique. Otherwise, the long season can start to look too homogenous.
Stephen Curry talks teaming up with LeBron James
The rivalry between LeBron James and Stephen Curry has been going on for nearly a decade. And now another chapter is set to take place when the Lakers and Warriors square off on Christmas Day.
The majority of this rivalry took place when James was a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers, meeting the Warriors in four consecutive NBA Finals from 2015-to-2018. But there have been some moments since LeBron has joined the Lakers as well, including an incredibly fierce second-round playoff matchup in 2023 in which the Lakers ousted Curry’s Warriors in six games.
The respect between the two has always been there, but became even more present this past summer as the two were teammates on Team USA and had outstanding chemistry together in leading the team to a Gold Medal at the Olympics. This of course led to many wondering if the two would ever team up on an NBA court, but Curry said it’s highly unlikely, though he didn’t necessarily say it won’t happen.
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