NBA: 4 Obvious takeaways from the highly-anticipated 2024-25 Christmas Day slate

There's a changing of the guard atop the East

Another big takeaway that we can gather from this year's Christmas Day slate is the fact that there's a bit of a changing of the guard atop the Eastern Conference. This has been happening for the past couple of years but it's safe to say that it's nearly complete. The Boston Celtics have always been a top team in the East, but the Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks have successfully unseated the Milwaukee Bucks as a team that always seemed to find itself in that second tier. With how they've struggled over the past two years, the NBA has sent a pretty strong message that they don't anticipate that changing.

Since 2018, the Bucks have been featured on Christmas Day for six straight seasons. Not this year. That streak is finally over even though Milwaukee still has a big-name roster. That's not a good sign for the Bucks.

There's an argument to be made that they were the biggest snub from the Christmas Day slate, but this is a sign that the league simply doesn't know what to expect from the inconsistent Bucks this season.