A couple years ago, almost no one outside Milwaukee could pronounce Giannis Antetokounmpo's last name. Now, the Bucks star is one of the NBA's most popular players.
Antetokounmpo had the fourth-most popular jersey in the NBA during the 2017-18 regular season, while the Milwaukee Bucks were the sixth-best selling merchandise team, the league announced today. Rankings were based on NBAStore.com sales since the beginning of the 2017-18 season.
Antetokounmpo’s No. 4 spot on the NBA’s most popular jersey list is the highest by a Bucks player to finish a season, and it's four spots above his No. 8 ranking to finish the 2016-17 season. He entered the Top 15 of NBA jersey sales in December of 2016, which was the first time a Bucks player was in the Top 15 of jersey sales since Gary Payton ranked 15th in December of 2003.
Overall, Bucks team merchandise jumped up two spots to No. 6 after finishing the 2016-17 season ranked eighth.
League-wide, for the third straight year, Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors beat LeBron James and the rival Cleveland Cavaliers to lead the NBA in individual and team jersey sales. Curry, James, Kevin Durant, Antetokounmpo and Kyrie Irving rounded out the five most popular jerseys sold on NBAStore.com, followed by Russell Westbrook, Kristaps Porzingis, Joel Embiid, James Harden and Ben Simmons in the top 10.
Fans can get Antetokounmpo’s jersey and all Bucks merchandise, including official 2018 Playoff gear, at Bucks Pro Shop locations and online at shop.bucks.com. The Bucks Pro Shop location inside the BMO Harris Bradley Center will be open during the playoffs, Monday-Friday, from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.each day.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
