Kevin Durant doubles down on LeBron James' brutal dig at NFL challenging NBA’s Christmas Day slate

On a day that the NFL tried to steal the show, it was the NBA that delivered. The Christmas Day slate didn't disappoint, with four close games and some of the best players leaving it all on the court.

The NFL teamed up with Netflix to broadcast two games that looked great on paper but ended up being blowouts.

With that in mind, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James made sure to call out the NFL for also scheduling games on a day that has historically been owned by the NBA:

"Merry Christmas to my family back home — I'm coming home. And I love the NFL. I love the NFL. But Christmas is our day," LeBron said.

Following his team's win over the Denver Nuggets, Kevin Durant echoed a similar sentiment, praising the league for getting the best players to play on Christmas:

"It's not just [me, Steph and LeBron], you see Jokic tonight. You see a hall of fame, an icon in Russ tonight. ... It was an amazing day for basketball, I'm grateful I was able to play," Durant said.

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Charles Barkley says NBA season should start later

The NBA has had a problem with ratings this season. Football continues to be king in America, and competing with them is a battle they might not be able to win.

That's why Charles Barkley believes the league should push the start of the season back so they don't have to compete with other sports:

"The best ratings we've ever had was the year we went on strike and started on Christmas," Barkley said on December 20. "I think we need to seriously consider starting at Christmas because you are wasting your time going up against the NFL and college football. They own the weekends now."

Barkley doubled down on it by talking about how greedy the NFL is. With a late start, they would get all eyes on them:

"But I think if we started at Christmas… There's no other sport we'd compete with if we started at Christmas. College football would be over, pro football is winding down, and we'd have the entire calendar in late December and January… June to ourselves. I think we need to seriously consider plain and simple. Listen, NFL's King Kong, and you know they're greedy pigs," Barkley said.

At the end of the day, the NBA will have to find a way to solve this ratings issue. At least they can brag about having the best Christmas Day slate this season.