5 best NBA Christmas commercials of all time

The NBA has been promoting its Christmas Day matchups on ESPN and ABC over the years. However, at least in recent editions, five Christmas Day game ads stood out among the rest. With one iconic commercial celebrating its 10th anniversary this Dec. 25, let's take a look back at those ads.

Most iconic NBA Christmas commercials

5) 2012

During the final years of the NBA's official jersey deal with Adidas, the global athleisure powerhouse unveiled uniforms only for specific use during the Christmas Day games, and one set of those was this bunch of color-rush-styled jerseys for 2012.

To hype the jerseys, which were eventually made available in the market, the league put up a commercial featuring Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, Russell Westbrook, Dwyane Wade and Joe Johnson, where they dribbled the balls to the tune of the Christmas song "Carol of the Bells."

4) 2016

What made this 2016 commercial so remarkable was that the NBA made some of its superstars back then sing.

The commercial began with Blake Griffin singing the opening line of the league's unofficial "Christmas song," based on Andy Williams' "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."

Kevin Love, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Draymond Green, Zach LaVine, Victor Oladipo and D’Angelo Russell also contributed to the song, and it turned out to be an instant classic.

3) 2019

The NBA's video editing team did a good job of turning some highlights early into the 2019-2020 season into a Christmas motif as if the players were playing outdoors.

What made the commercial cooler was that the song used was "Winter Wonderland," the perfect song choice you can get for the ad because it looked like they were indeed in the league's Winter Wonderland.

2) 2013

While the sleeved jerseys that Adidas produced for the NBA during the mid-2010s drew some negative reactions from the fans -- and even LeBron James himself when he tore his sleeved jersey right in the middle of a game -- the commercial that launched Christmas game-specific sleeved jerseys in 2013 did not.

It was even praised because the players involved, Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Steve Nash and, yes, LeBron James, just casually drained 3-pointers to the tune of "Jingle Bells." The commercial was called "Jingle Hoops." Just in time for its 10th anniversary, let's revisit the said commercial.

1) 2011

While many fans believe the 2013 Christmas commercial is the best, this writer thinks the 2011 commercial is more iconic.

While it was not exactly a Christmas Day commercial, it was epic in the sense that the NBA and TNT's video team fused clips of past legends with the superstars at that time -- and also an action shot of Bill Russell being placed at the Madison Square Garden with Spike Lee in attendance.

The ad, called "The Greatest," was memorable, and it was very fitting because the league was finally beginning its 65th anniversary season following a lockout.