Ranking 9 most important early-season national TV games on the 2024-25 NBA schedule

Ranking nine of the most important early-season national TV games on the 2024-25 NBA schedule.

The NBA just released its entire 2024-25 regular season schedule and it has made plenty of waves during the dog days of the offseason. Looking specifically at the first half of the schedule, there is plenty of intriguing matchups that could easily absorb the label as a "big game."

With the start of NBA training camps still more than a month off, we look at the early portion of the schedule and rank nine of the most important games through the first few months of the 2024-25 NBA season.

9. Victor Wembanyama faces off against Joel Embiid - San Antonio Spurs @ Philadelphia 76ers - Monday, December 23

Checking in at No. 9 is a highly-anticipated matchup between Joel Embiid and Victor Wembanyama. As two of the most intriguing bigs in the league who aren't named Nikola Jokic, it will be interesting to see these two 7-footers matched up against each other just before the Christmas Day games. In what could be an early treat, we'll be able to see Wemby send a message relatively early on in his sophomore season.

Even though not many expect the San Antonio Spurs to win many games this season, Wemby could make a large enough step in his development this season where the Spurs could emerge as a potential dark horse threat to make the Play-In Tournament in the Western Conference. By the end of December, we should have a great grasp of what both Wemby and the Spurs will look like this season.