The current NBA Playoff battle between Luka Dončić’s Lakers and Anthony Edwards’ Timberwolves is also a fight for the next face of the league.
Basketball fans, diehard and casual, know that the NBA likes to showcase its marquee players and teams on Christmas Day. And led by a thrilling 115-113 win for the Los Angeles Lakers over the Golden State Warriors, the NBA posted its biggest Dec. 25 viewership ratings in five years.
It was no accident that LeBron James‘ Lakers and Stephen Curry‘s Warriors were given the primetime 8 p.m. ET slot after the NFL’s doubleheader; you put the faces of the league in the biggest window on your most-viewed regular-season day. They’re the biggest, most recognizable superstars who appear in the most commercials with the championship legacies, the signature shoe deals, the best-selling jerseys and merchandise, and the household names who are globally ubiquitous future Hall of Famers.
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But the four other games scheduled for that Christmas Wednesday were a good indicator of who the league believes could be next. While Nikola Jokic‘s Denver Nuggets defeated Devin Booker‘s Phoenix Suns in the nightcap and Jayson Tatum‘s Boston Celtics were upset by Joel Embiid‘s Philadelphia 76ers in the early evening game, the first two matchups of the day were far more revealing.
Of course, Victor Wembanyama continued to cement himself as one of the league’s brightest young stars by putting up 42 points and 18 rebounds in a narrow loss to the New York Knicks in the most-watched Christmas noon game in 13 years. But it was the duel in Dallas between Luka Dončić and the Mavericks against Anthony Edwards‘ Minnesota Timberwolves in a Western Conference Finals rematch that represents the two forks in the proverbial road the NBA can take in deciding who will be the heir apparent to LeBron and Steph as the faces of the league.
Dallas, of course, shockingly dealt Dončić to the Lakers in February in one of the most significant NBA trades ever seen, joining James and catapulting the Lakers up the conference standings to second. Their reward is a first-round series against Ant and the T’Wolves, the matchup most likely to attract that same mix of casuals and hoopheads the NBA most covets.
With James, Curry, and Kevin Durant heading toward the end of their careers, Edwards is viewed by many as the future of American basketball. His ferocious, take-no-prisoners style of play on the court meshes well with his confident, magnetic personality off the court. You can tell Ant has that it factor. It’s why the 23-year-old is the face of Adidas Basketball with his own signature line, a pitchman for Bose, Prada, Sprite, and Fanatics, the current subject of several documentary projects, and a previous Boardroom cover star. He has the juice and the momentum of being “next.”
“I refer to him as a walking Emmy,” super agent Bill Duffy, who reps both Edwards and Dončić, told Boardroom’s Ian Stonebrook. “He’s so entertaining. He’s brilliant, he’s smart, he’s witty, he’s humorous, he’s the whole package.”
There are many signs, however, pointing toward Ant not being close to ready for face-of-the-league status. From various alleged paternity issues, to saying stars from previous eras besides Michael Jordan didn’t have much skill, to outbursts like a vulgar comment toward a fan this week that drew a $50,000 fine from the league, Edwards still needs to make sure his headlines don’t outweigh his otherworldly talent.
Dončić’s perceived immaturity, inflexibility, and lack of conditioning are a few reasons why he now wears the Lakers’ purple and gold instead of Mavericks blue and white. But Dallas ownership and management’s negative views of the 26-year-old Slovenian sensation have neither prevented Mavs fans from turning on their beloved franchise en masse nor stopped Laker fans from making his No. 77 the best-selling NBA jersey during the 2024-25 regular season. The Jordan Brand, Gatorade, and Panini ambassador is not only the first player not named James or Curry to lead the league in jersey sales since the 2012-13 season, but is the first ever international player to have the league’s most popular jersey.
For whatever reason, an international player has never been the face of the league. But if Luka remains a popular fixture on the league’s most popular team, becoming an all-time great Laker as LeBron passes the L.A. torch his way, perhaps Dončić can become the first-ever exception.
If Edwards or Dončić aren’t the long-term faces of the league, perhaps Wembanyama can become the guy. Edwards even admitted as much when he was asked the face-of-the-league question at All-Star Weekend in February.
The 7-foot-3, 21-year-old French phenom has all the physical tools to be the NBA’s heir apparent, but being a big man and an international superstar have historically been impediments against that status since the days of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, and Wilt Chamberlain. Perhaps the next generation of NBA fans can help reverse this decades-long trend and help anoint Wemby or Dončić if it’s a title Edwards doesn’t desire.
For the time being, LeBron and Steph are still well entrenched as the faces of the league, and the NBA appears quite content with marketing them as such as long as they continue to defy Father Time and excel long past most superstar athletes’ expiration dates. But the NBA will continue to place this Los Angeles-Minnesota series in the most important time slots possible to put the spotlight on Dončić and Edwards.
As the league slowly shifts into its next era, more than which team advances to the next round of the playoffs is at stake.
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