The numbers show that NBA fans rallied around Luka Dončić following one of the most shocking trades in league history.
Dončić finished the season with the NBA’s most popular jersey, the league and the National Basketball Players Association announced Monday. Dončić was eighth on the jersey sales list when the NBA released the numbers for the first half of the 2024–2025 season on Jan. 24. A week later, he was traded from the Mavericks to the Lakers.
Steph Curry, LeBron James, and Jayson Tatum were the next three players on the list, respectively. The trio held the top spots for the first half of this year and all of last season, when Dončić finished sixth. The Slovenian star jumped all of them following the trade.
The blockbuster deal catapulted Dončić into the spotlight, especially after he missed 22 games between Christmas Day and his Lakers debut on Feb. 10. The 26-year-old also became a sympathetic figure for fans, especially after it became more apparent that he was blindsided by the Mavericks.
“He was never gonna leave,” Hawks star Trae Young tweeted, in response to a video of Dončić crying as he watched a tribute video played during his return to Dallas on Wednesday.
Dončić’s jersey sales also benefited from joining the Lakers, one of the most famous franchises in professional sports. The Lakers finished this season No. 1 among all teams in merchandise sales, the NBA and NBPA also announced Monday. The Lakers were second in the first half of the season behind the defending-champion Celtics.
The Lakers were also involved in some of the most-watched games of the year, including the top-rated Christmas Day game against the Warriors (7.6 million viewers). Dončić’s first game against Dallas on Feb. 25 drew 2.5 million viewers on TNT, the most-watched game on cable outside of opening day and Christmas.
The Mavericks jumped up from seventh in the first half of the season to sixth in merchandise sales following the trade. However, none of their players cracked the individual list, including Anthony Davis, the key piece the team received in return for Dončić.
While Davis did not make last year’s top-10 list even while on the Lakers, it didn’t help that he injured his calf during his first game in Dallas and has played just nine games for the Mavericks this season.
