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Fashion April 12, 2023
Griffin Adams
Griffin Adams

LeBron & The Lakers Lead NBA Second-half Merch Sales

Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
After sitting behind Stephen Curry at the season’s halfway point, LeBron reclaimed his spot at No. 1, joining his team atop the merch rankings.

With the NBA regular season concluded, all eyes have turned to the postseason and Play-in Tournament, which is off to a roaring start. This is partly due to LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, who locked up the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference with a thrilling overtime victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night.

It’s been a grueling season for LeBron and the Lakers on the court, but off of it — specifically in the jersey sales and team merchandise departments — they’ve led the way.

Using sales from NBAStore.com for the second half of the 2022-23 season, the latest rankings have the LeBron No. 6 jersey as the NBA’s top-seller, while his team sits at No. 1 when it comes to collective merchandise sales. The league and NBPA jointly announced the data on Wednesday.

LeBron reclaimed his place on the throne after Golden State’s Stephen Curry led the league in jersey sales at the season’s halfway point. Curry, meanwhile, swapped places with The King, sitting at No. 2 for the second half. Elsewhere on the list, Boston’s Jayson Tatum jumped all the way up to No. 3 from No. 7, bumping Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo down to No. 4. Mavericks star Luka Dončić rounded out the top five after being in fourth prior.

As seen on the list above, three different teams — the Warriors, the Celtics, and the Mavericks — boast multiple players in the top 15. However, that doesn’t correlate exactly with team merchandise sales.

That title belongs to the Lakers, who spent the entire season at the top spot. In fact, the top three remain unchanged from the midway point, with the Warriors and Celtics rounding out the top three. The biggest team riser? The Phoenix Suns, who went from No. 9 in the first half to No. 4 in the second, pushing the Bucks and Bulls down to nos. 5 and 6, respectively.

  1. Lakers
  2. Warriors
  3. Celtics
  4. Suns
  5. Bucks
  6. Bulls
  7. Knicks
  8. 76ers
  9. Mavericks
  10. Nets

While these rankings don’t speak for the season as a whole, it’s reasonable to conclude that the Lakers, Warriors, and Celtics were your three season-long merch winners. After that, however, one would need to see the exact numbers to see which teams finished ahead of the others.

The same could be said for LeBron vs. Steph, considering they swapped places at nos. 1 and 2 between the two rankings. But as of right now, LeBron’s reign on jersey sales continues.

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