What jersey sales really tell us

Twice a season, the NBA and the players’ union publish the top 15 best-selling jerseys, based on sales from NBAStore.com, Fanatics.com and their partner sites. No volumes, no revenue: just a ranking. Yet it’s enough to tell a story the stats don’t.

• 6 of 10players in the jersey top 10 got no MVP votes
• 35average age of the No. 1 seller over the last five seasons
• +21%sales on NBAStore.com after Dončić was traded to the Lakers

The gap with the MVP vote

Let’s put the two 2025-26 rankings side by side: the one from the 100 MVP voters, and the one from jersey buyers. The red dot is the sales rank, the black circle the MVP voting rank. The longer the line, the more the two audiences disagree.

Of the ten best-selling jerseys, only four belong to players who received MVP votes: Dončić, Wembanyama, Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokić. The other six, including Curry, Brunson and LeBron James, got none.

The other way around, the gap is even starker. The MVP, elected with 83 first-place votes out of 100, is eighth in sales. Jokić, a three-time MVP and second in the voting, is tenth. Jaylen Brown, sixth in the voting, doesn’t even make the jersey top 15.

A jersey doesn’t reward a season. It rewards a story people want to wear, and, incidentally, to machine-wash at 30 degrees.

A closed club at the top

Over the last five seasons, only three players have held the top spot.

1. 2021-22LeBron James37years old · midseason ranking
2. 2022-23LeBron James38years old · second half of the season
3. 2023-24Stephen Curry36years old · end of season
4. 2024-25Luka Dončić26years old · first international No. 1
5. 2025-26Stephen Curry38years old · end of season

The average age of the No. 1 over that period is 35. The jersey rankings crown careers, not seasons. They react years after what happens on the court: by the time a player tops the sales, he’s often already at the height of his story, rarely at the height of his game.

Dončić is the exception, and it’s easy to explain: it took a spectacular trade, from Dallas to the Lakers in February 2025, for a 26-year-old to take first place.

Three things the rankings measure

Market size. Oklahoma City and Denver are small markets, New York and Los Angeles the two biggest. Brunson is third, Dončić and LeBron second and fifth. People buy the jersey of a player they see every night on national TV, from a city of millions, more readily.

How long the story has been running. Curry has been near the top of the rankings for more than ten years. Buyers don’t react to one brilliant month: they stay loyal. That’s why the top of the list moves so slowly, and the bottom so fast.

The big event. After Dončić was traded to the Lakers, jersey sales on NBAStore.com were up 21% on the same period the year before, according to the NBA. A trade sells more than a winning streak.

The Wembanyama case

One player escapes all three rules. Victor Wembanyama plays in one of the league’s smallest markets, has only three seasons under his belt and has never been traded. Yet he was fourth in sales as a rookie, in 2023-24, sixth the following year, then fourth again in 2025-26.

He’s the only player under 25 in the current top 5, surrounded by Curry (38), LeBron James (41), Brunson and Dončić. His market isn’t San Antonio: it’s the world, and France in particular. If the 35-year rule holds, he has another ten years before reaching the usual age of a No. 1. We bet he won’t wait that long.

What we’re watching

• Cooper Flagg is ninth, the only rookie in the top 15, after placing eleventh at midseason. He’s rising faster than his stats would suggest, and that’s the mark of future headliners.
• Giannis Antetokounmpo dropped out of the top 15 at the end of the season, after being eleventh a year earlier. When a player of his level disappears from the rankings, the public is often anticipating a change of chapter.
• The teams: the Knicks finished first in merchandise sales, and the Thunder entered the top 10 for the first time since 2018-19. A title and an MVP weren’t enough: it took two winning seasons for the public to follow.