Luka Dončić has always dreamt big. He left his home country of Slovenia as a boy to chase greatness at Real Madrid. He became an NBA prodigy at the age of 19 with the Dallas Mavericks. A global superstar when he was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers last winter. And now, he wants to be the owner of a professional basketball team.
In an exclusive report from The New York Times, Dončić is reportedly part of an investor group, spearheaded by former Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson, seeking to bring a franchise to Rome as part of the NBA’s bold new venture, NBA Europe.
Yes, Rome.
The Eternal City. The Colosseum. A market dripping in history and starving for top-tier professional basketball.
Nelson, 63, is the son of former NBA coach and executive Don Nelson, and was the architect of the 2018 draft-night trade to acquire Dončić from the Atlanta Hawks. According to The New York Times report, Nelson’s investment group has a preliminary agreement to purchase Vanoli Basket Cremona, a northern Italian club that holds a coveted Serie A license.
That license is the golden key. Any team in the new NBA Europe League must also compete domestically, and Cremona’s spot in Italy’s top league provides the legal and structural foothold.
From there, the real play begins.
Sources told The New York Times, that the group would establish a new franchise roughly 330 miles south in Rome, a city NBA commissioner Adam Silver has identified as a cornerstone market for the league’s projected 2027 launch. Rome currently has no top-division basketball team — a sleeping giant in a sports economy that understands spectacle and legacy better than most capitals on Earth.
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Silver’s NBA Europe project is not a side hustle. With projected buy-ins reportedly exceeding $1 billion in markets like London, this is high finance meets hardwood ambition. Investment heavyweights — Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, RedBird Capital, Sixth Street, Blackstone, Arctos — have circled. JP Morgan and the Raine Group are helping structure the gold rush.
Dončić, born in Ljubljana and raised in Madrid’s basketball cathedral, is no stranger to the European basketball market. He is the perfect spokesperson and embodiment of the global model Silver is trying to institutionalize. He isn’t just investing in a team. He’s investing in infrastructure, access and the next generation of European phenoms who won’t need to detour through someone else’s system.
And Dončić is not alone, former San Antonio Spurs point guard, and French native, Tony Parker, owns ASVEL, a team near the city of Lyon that is expected to join NBA Europe as well. Even former Lakers champion Pau Gasol is interested in a leadership role in the new league.
However, ownership rules for active NBA players remain unsettled. Conflicts of interest must be ironed out. Serie A mandates a two-year waiting period before a relocated franchise can change its name. But none of that feels insurmountable for Nelson and Dončić.
If this Rome franchise materializes, it won’t just be another expansion team. It will be a declaration that the European basketball ecosystem is no longer a feeder system.
It’s a marketplace.
And Luka Dončić intends to own a piece of it.
