NBA Christmas reimagined as Hallmark movie posters

There is an abundance of Christmas movies — perhaps an overabundance. While you have your classics like Home Alone, A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Die Hard, there is no other entity that does Christmas movies prolifically like Hallmark. (Search the word “Christmas” on their Wikipedia page, and you’ll find it’s the majority of their catalog.) Imagine an alternate universe where the NBA, no longer happy with just having Christmas Day games, decides to have its players act in Christmas movies. What would that be like? Well, it would be just as excessive and cookie-cutter as the stuff Hallmark releases.

A year after defeating the Warriors in a special exhibition match at the gym in Santa’s Workshop, LeBron James and the Cavaliers return to the North Pole to face Golden State yet again. James, having been awarded a crown for being the game’s MVP, is looking for another win, while Kevin Durant is looking to dethrone James’ spot at the top. However, while traveling, the teams’ shared train breaks down in the middle of Canada, putting the match in jeopardy of not being played, and giving James another year to keep the crown. Durant proposes an unsanctioned basketball match, and there just so happens to be a basketball court right by them. The MVP of this match will leave with the crown, and James’ competitive enough to actually accept Durant’s proposal. Will Durant’s plan work before Santa catches wind of it and tries to stop him?

The Ball family are headed home for the holidays. Lonzo, fresh off a Lakers win over the Celtics, can’t wait to open presents. Meanwhile, LiAngelo and LaMelo are flying from Lithuania to be reunited with home-cooked meals from their parents. There’s just one thing standing in their the Ball siblings’ way: their father, LaVar, who’s been waiting in the garage all week with a basketball. What’s on his mind? Well, he wants his sons to play against him and Mama Tina. If Lonzo wins, he gets to open his presents early. If LiAngelo and LaMelo win, they get their parents’ recipe. Will the kids dunk on their parents, or will LaVar and Tina earn their bragging rights until next Christmas?

Joel Embiid and Kristaps Porzingis have played against each other before, but they’ve never hung out in New York together. That changes this Christmas when the Sixers face the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. The night before their game, a Shirley Temple-filled Embiid gets a text from porzingis saying he wants to hang out and go shoe shopping. Their plan goes awry when rabid Sixers and Knicks fans chase them around New York for autographs for 12 hours straight. What wacky adventures will Embiid and Porzingis get into? And will the heat die down before their Christmas Day match?

Santa Claus’ sleigh crashes into Tom Thibodeau’s house hours before Christmas Day. Thibodeau is eager to help an injured Santa however he can, but the task seems so daunting. Santa asks Thibodeau if he could finish the job, and while Thibodeau has never flown a sleigh before, he’s brave enough to try. But with time running out, Thibodeau needs to figure out how to get all the presents delivered before every child wakes up. His solution: A non-stop sleigh ride until sunrise. No breaks. No substitutions. Will one or all of Santa’s reindeer collapse from exhaustion? Yeah, probably.

In this hard-hitting documentary, investigative journalist Kyrie Irving explains why Christmas is not the holiday you think is. In fact, it might not be a holiday at all. How does Santa get from one house to the next in a short amount of time? How can that many reindeer carry a sleigh into the atmosphere? Why is that polar bear drinking a Coke in the North Pole? Irving interviews a long list of scientists and philosophers to get to the bottom of the cold, unsettling truth behind Christmas.

The producers behind May I Have This Dance? were overwhelmed by the film’s surprise success that they needed a Christmas version to keep riding the wave and make more money. It’s basically a Christmas version of the original film. Instead of John Wall teaming up with Tessa (Zoe Saldana) to compete in a Fourth of July dance contest in D.C., the two now compete in a Christmas dance contest. In place of the summer jams that rocked theaters, Christmas tunes are now blasting from the speakers. And instead of Johnny (Willem Dafoe) being a pyrotechnic engineer, Johnny is now engineers Christmas lights that sync perfectly to music. The producers behind May I Have This Dance? are banking on the fact that you’ll watch this carbon copy Christmas edition of the film. The fact that they’re letting us be so transparent about this is surprising.

What does it mean to be a friend? What does it truly mean to celebrate Christmas with friends? Director Werner Herzog invited a handful of stars from the Rockets and Thunder for their own Christmas party, to find out what how friendship fits into the realm of a holiday. What will Herzog learn in his newest documentary? What emotions will surface when these friends sit down and reflect on the past year? What fancy clothes will they give one another? We know ball is life (and family sometimes), but what else can ball be?