NBA Store Celebrates 10 Years by Revealing the Top Selling Jerseys Over the Past Decade - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

From NBA.com (via Sports Biz) comes this list of the NBA's top 10 jersey sales since the NBA store in New York City opened roughly 10 years ago -- the anniversary will be Sept. 18, 2008, but the NBA is getting an early jump on the fact that they have the world's first apparel store owned and operated by a professional sports league and celebrating for six months or so. Anyway, you probably won't be shocked to see who tops the list:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Allen Iverson
4. Lebron James
5. Shaquille O'Neal
6. Tracy McGrady
7. Dwyane Wade
8. Jason Kidd
9. Vince Carter
10. Tim Duncan

Clearly, MJ was going to be the most popular jersey. And I wish I hadn't read Rovell's post first, because his points capsule the list very nicely -- to summarize, MJ only played three years and is tops, LeBron is at four this early in his career (this is the one that stood out to me first as well), Kobe and AI are polarizing but still made the list and Duncan sneaks in at 10 despite not usually landing in the annual top sales.

But Rovell's first point is most important: a store that is located in downtown New York has exactly zero members of the New York Knicks on the top 10 jersey sales in the last 10 years. This can be countered by pointing out that the NBA store is a more generic location and more worldly popular, but still, not a great sign for the Knicks.

I would also add that it's fascinating to see the stereotypical "changing of the guard" from this list. T-Mac and Air Jersey are both phenomenally popular players, but they're also on the backside of their careers, and it's certainly arguable that they were the two players, when they appeared on the cusp of stardom, most ready to take the NBA back to the heydey it enjoyed with MJ, et al. Clearly, this was not accurate. But with a new infusion of talent in the league, and it very arguably heading in the right direction, it's great to see where Bron and Wade rank in relation to the former pair. And yes, I know I'm probably headed to basketball purgatory for the picture.