The Oklahoma City Thunder spent Christmas night in Indianapolis in a bittersweet mood.
They woke up at home earlier that day, with their families, and opened presents with their children before a late afternoon flight for a short road trip, which was positive. But they also were annoyed, whether they admitted it publicly or not, that 10 teams were playing five games on the NBA's marquee day -- and they were spectators.
They'd won a league-best 57 games the season before and had one of the top players in the league, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the previous season's MVP runner-up whom the NBA perhaps should've been featuring on its highest-profile day.