It’s the premier day of the regular season, the day that the scheduling office reserves for the biggest cities, the biggest teams and the biggest names. Yes, the day that generates the biggest ratings, the day that gets advertisers bidding higher and higher for a chance to promote their products in commercial breaks. And on this Christmas Day, the NBA has turned to the Utah Jazz to fill one of those slots.
Mitchell is now one of the league’s poster stars, appearing as a big part of major events like All-Star Weekend and the NBA Draft. His battle against fellow Adidas marketing partner and first-team All-NBAer Damian Lillard is the biggest reason the league and ESPN thought that people would fight through the eggnog fatigue and stay tuned until the 8:30 p.