New Orleans Pelicans: 10 Most Valuable NBA Players
#10: Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers
Though certainly a top-five player in the league, Anthony Davis barely cracks the top-ten of our list. Davis takes a couple of hits in the second two categories. Could The Brow really be the face of the league?
Jersey Sales: Davis is 8th in total jersey sales, which is pretty good, but also largely due to the fact that he plays in the country’s biggest market, on the most popular team, which happens to have LeBron James on it. He wasn’t selling this many jerseys when he was on the New Orleans Pelicans.
Related Story. The Pelicans won the Anthony Davis trade. light
Importance to team: Davis is not even the MVP of his own team. If he were to leave, the Lakers would still probably make the playoffs somehow behind LeBron. Davis is obviously important to their title hopes but the Lakers wouldn’t be a lottery team if he left.
Importance to the future of the league: Fans outside of the U.S. probably didn’t know who Davis was when he was on the New Orleans Pelicans. He’s a great player, but will likely never be the “best” player or the face of the league.
#9: Kawhi Leonard, Los Angeles Clippers
Kawhi Leonard showed his value last season, dragging the underdog Toronto Raptors to a title behind one of the greatest playoff performances of all-time. But Leonard is another guy who plays with a second superstar who steals some of this thunder. He is also a quiet, non-flashy player who isn’t well known anywhere else.
Jersey Sales: Leonard is 7th overall in jersey sales, which is not great considering he plays in Los Angeles and just won a title last season. If not for those two things, Leonard would be out of the top-ten in jersey sales.
Importance to team: Obviously Leonard matters to the Clippers, but if they had built their team around only Paul George, they would still likely be good, not great, but still a playoff team in the Western Conference.
Importance to the future of the league: I am a die-hard NBA fan and have never heard Leonard utter more than seven words at a time. He has no social media presence and doesn’t want to be the face of the league. Leonard is great, but the league would do just fine without him and foreign fans barely know who he is.