LeBron James will be wearing the number 23 next season after all. According to Yahoo! Sports, the Los Angeles Lakers missed the March 15th deadline for a jersey change. This means that Anthony Davis wearing the number 23 and James wearing the number six will have to wait until the 2020-2021 season at least. Davis will wear the number three for next season according to his Instagram.
LeBron James Will Continue to Wear Number 23 Next Season
Financial Issue for Nike
The league office noted that if the team was to work out a compromise with Nike, the manufacturer of jerseys in the NBA, they would have allowed it. Nike would state that due to the mass production and inventory issues a jersey change would occur after the deadline, it would result in them incurring massive financial losses. If the change had gone through, Nike would have to absorb all the current inventory with “James, 23” on the back of a Laker jersey.
It should be noted that both James and Davis are both Nike athletes. With both having signatures shoes, Nike could have possibly accommodated the request of two of their biggest brand ambassadors in basketball. Obviously, this issue is out of the control of both James and Davis however, James has expressed that he will hand over the number 23 jersey to Davis after the 2019-2020 season.
Financial Impact on LeBron James and Anthony Davis
From the standpoint of Nike, it will be interesting for them how much this move would affect Davis’ merchandise sales. With the knowledge of Davis wearing the number three for this season only, fans will be more inclined to wait it out until Davis eventually gets the number three jersey. James has worn the number 23 since his days in Cleveland. With only one season in Los Angeles, thus Nike won’t take much off a hit next season in this regard.
LeBron James publicly expressed that he would hand over his old jersey number to his new teammate, last month upon the completion of the trade. Davis is scheduled to speak during his Lakers introductory press conference on Saturday to possibly express the matter.
Reminder: We’ll be airing tomorrow’s @AntDavis23 introductory press conference LIVE at 12 PM on Spectrum SportsNet. ? #Lakers https://t.co/2P68Zd8vgc
— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) July 12, 2019
Main Photo
Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:’rNS3C-2DTx5qa7YdgJnNeg’,sig:’k1SMIBCQ-wRgqHVOL8JH34h5qhgSuKiUyEODv8-DxUw=’,w:’594px’,h:’396px’,items:’1065982872′,caption: true ,tld:’com’,is360: false })});
