The new face of the league? Jersey sales exceed those of LeBron James and Curry, and the league’s general manager named the small forward No. 1!

On October 10th, today, the US media reported that James will miss 4-5 weeks due to sciatica. Under such circumstances, James' record of participating in the opening game for 22 consecutive years has been ended. Perhaps this is the beginning of the true end of an era. Although James is 40 years old, he is still the most watched player in the league. However, due to his age and the recent ridiculous "Decision 2", many people have turned away from fans.

With Lao Zhan stepping down from the altar, the alliance needs to correct its new appearance. After all, this is related to the alliance's income. If Curry were 5 years younger, then this position would definitely belong to him, but now Curry has entered the end of his career, so he cannot maintain this position for a long time. In addition, there are no such topical players in the United States, so the NBA is also trying to find foreign players. They want to correct the liberal arts class in the future, but the liberal arts class is too young.

And now there is a good choice, he is Doncic. Doncic is now among the top five in the league. The key is that he is only 26 years old and has not yet entered his peak period. When he truly enters his peak period, he may have a chance to hit the throne of the league's number one player. And Doncic's style of play is very ornamental. He loves singles and is extremely efficient. His passing is also very confusing, so he also got the name of Luka Magic. Another key reason is that Doncic has now joined the Lakers.

Many fans believe that Doncic's joining the Lakers was manipulated by Xiao Hua and the league. For this reason, Xiao Hua gave the Mavericks the No. 1 pick. Regardless of whether this is the intention of the league to make Doncic the new face of the league, but looking at it now , he already has such an ability. In the jersey sales statistics compiled by ESPN, Doncic surpassed Curry and James in 25 years. These two have dominated the league for the past 11 years. Now Doncic ranks first, Curry is second, and James is third.

The high sales volume of jerseys also shows that this player is more popular in some aspects, and the Lakers management is also very wise. After Doncic joined, they immediately strengthened his position as the team's number one player. Although this is somewhat unfair to Lao Zhan, it is a wise choice for the long-term future development of the team. The Lakers have a chance to achieve good results under his leadership in the new season. After all, the team introduced several good pieces during the offseason.

Now that James is injured, will it have an impact on the Lakers' record? In fact, if James is not here, it may not have a great impact on the Lakers. After all, if James is not here, Doncic can control the ball more, and he can make up for it by paying more. When Doncic led the team with a single core last season, the team won by 18.4 points per 100 possessions.

Both James and Doncic need to have the ball in their hands to be effective. If James shares some of the ball, Doncic's threat will be reduced, so their net efficiency together is not good enough, and neither of them is good at defense, so the team's defense is not good when they are on the court at the same time, which also affects the net efficiency value. Doncic also has the idea of ​​​​leading the team to compete for the championship this season. In order to make himself stronger, he also chose to lose weight.

And his weight loss has also attracted the attention of many fans and media. For this reason, maybe he will get more MVP votes. After all, it is very inspiring. Recently, the league officially convened some general managers of some teams in the league to conduct some voting. This group of people can be said to know the ball best, and they are also relatively fair, so their predictions and rankings are more trustworthy. Among the MVP predictions for the new season, Doncic received 10% of the votes, second only to Jokic.

As for their votes for the strongest players at each position, Doncic's point guard got the second most votes, second only to Alexander, and his small forward position got 40% of the votes, ranking first in the league. Although Doncic rarely plays the 3 position, when the team plays a small lineup of 3, he will be a small forward, and with Tatum's injury, there is indeed no better player than Doncic at the small forward position.

I remember that when the league convened the general managers to vote in 2024, there was an item called 'Which player can force the opposing head coach to make more adjustments? ’ In this category, Doncic ranked first with 33% of the votes. This year, Jokic received 57% of the votes. Doncic is the best ball-handling core in the active league. If he is not flanked, he will play alone. If he is flanked, he can pass the ball to his teammates for easy scoring opportunities.

Although Doncic has shortcomings, his advantages are too obvious. He is far from being the strongest in the league, that is, he is poor at defense. If he corrects his defensive attitude, he may be the face of the league in the future and have the opportunity to win more honors. Having said that, what do you want to say about the current Lakers? Welcome to leave a message for discussion.