NBA Christmas Day Campaign: Hilarious Santa Spoofs, No Gifts Hashtags And More! [VIDEOS]

The NBA’s Christmas Day games are just three days away and the league affectionately known as the “Association” is unveiling their commercials for the big day. On tap for the festive day are five juicy matches that are sure to have every basketball fan’s mouth watering. So get your presents wrapped, drink your egg nog, build your snowman and sit back and watch the NBA’s hilarious commercials before the big day.

There are three separate ad campaigns that the NBA is running for its slate of Christmas Day games. The first is a dual advertisement for Taken 3 and the NBA’s slate of games that will be aired on ESPN and ABC. In this first commercial, Washington Wizards star point guard John Wall gets a phone call from Taken 3 actor Liam Neeson. Spoofing himself in every Taken movie, the New York resident Neeson, tells Wall that the Knicks have a “particular set of skills” and that his team would use those skills to beat the Wizards on Christmas Day. Wall accepts the challenge and ends the phone call with the words “good luck.”

Here is the commercial followed by the original spoof below:

Santa Claus got in on the action in the NBA, ESPN and ABC’s second advertisement campaign for Christmas Day. The second campaign is a series of spoofs featuring jolly Saint Nick himself. In one ad Santa Clause spoofs LeBron James’ infamous “The Decision”, in another he’s doing his best Allen Iverson impersonation as he talks about “Presents,” and he even does his best Gregg Popovich impression as he acts like a curmudgeon to the media. These videos are sure to get you in the holiday spirit and we have taken the liberty of putting in the original video that Santa is spoofing below.

You can see the rest of ESPN’s hilarious ads here.

The third and final campaign features more of the actual NBA players participating on Christmas Day. The campaign incorporates social media and highlights the hashtag #NoGifts. It showcases stars like Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving, Stephen Curry, Pau Gasol, Dwayne Wade, Tim Duncan and DeAndre Jordan as they say there will be “No Gifts” on the court on Christmas Day. The league released a statement regarding the commercials saying:

“The tongue-and-cheek ‘NBA Christmas #NoGifts Game Day’ spot highlights the passion, intensity and hard work that teams will put on the court this Christmas Day and how players won’t be handing out any ‘gifts’ to their opponents.”

You can ee the two ads below and you’ll notice that the ads feature the players wearing their new Christmas Day game jerseys that will have the players’ first names on the back for the first time ever. You can purchase the Christmas Day jerseys on the NBA’s website here. For the full schedule of games including viewing info, location, betting odds and more, read our NBA Christmas Schedule guide.