The NBA’s Christmas Day slate features five games, four title favorites, three recent champions, two legends in their twilight and a pear-shaped two-time MVP. There is something for everyone. Allow me to explain.
Sixers center Joel Embiid, the NBA's two-time returning MVP runner-up, is leading the league in scoring for a second straight season, averaging 33 points a game. The 7-foot Cameroonian's nightly 30.6 points last season made him the first center to win a scoring title since Shaquille O'Neal's vaunted MVP campaign in 2000. No center has won consecutive scoring titles since the encore to Bob McAdoo's 1975 MVP season.