WHILE their 2018-19 NBA campaign was a rough one that saw them missing the playoffs altogether, it was a totally different scenario for LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers on the league merchandise front where they were tops.
Citing numbers from NBAStore.com sales since the beginning of the 2018-19 season, the NBA at the weekend announced that James and the Lakers occupied the top spots in the most popular jersey and team merchandise lists, respectively, in end-of-year rankings.
James, who joined the Lakers prior to the start of the current season, dislodged Stephen Curry of the Golden Warriors, who topped the most popular jersey category the previous two seasons. The Lakers, for their part, made significant headway in supplanting the Warriors atop the team merchandise list after finishing sixth in last year’s rankings.
Finishing second to James was Curry with Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo coming at third, Boston’s Kyrie Irving at fourth, and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid at fifth.
Antetokounmpo and Embiid notched their highest ranking ever to date, the NBA noted.
At sixth was Houston’s James Harden, followed by Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook, Golden State’s Kevin Durant, Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons and Jimmy Butler.
Rounding out the top 15 were Dwyane Wade of Miami, Paul George of Oklahoma City, Luka Doncic of Dallas, Damian Lillard of Portland, and Jayson Tatum of Boston.
George made his return to the list since being last in it in 2016 while Doncic was the lone rookie to make it to the grouping.
Over at the team merchandise list, finishing second to the Lakers were the Warriors, followed by the Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks climbed five rungs after finishing 10th last year.
Completing the top 10 were the Chicago Bulls, Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks.
Dropping out of the top 10 from last year’s list were the Cleveland Cavaliers, James’s former team, who were replaced by the Knicks. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo
