NBA hail ‘amazing’ move after Luka Doncic’s $500m pledge

Luka Doncic’s Los Angeles Lakers contract is worth $165m and he earns tens of millions of dollars annually in endorsements – and he is putting that money to work.

Alongside the former Dallas Mavericks executive Donnie Nelson, Doncic, 27, has acquired Vanoli Cremona, a professional basketball club which plays in Italy’s top-flight Lega Basket Serie A.

Currently, the club is based about 60 miles from Milan. But Doncic and Nelson plan to relocate it to Rome, nearly 350 miles to the south. There, the pair plan to enter the team into NBA Europe, where bids for franchise spots have been from $500m to $1bn-plus.

Rome is one of 12 European cities where NBA commissioner Adam Silver wants his new transatlantic legacy project to have a permanent presence.

In Doncic and Rome, NBA Europe could combine the first player to publicly stake a claim in the expansion with the continent’s most historic – and perhaps most marketable – city.

Speaking to the media on Monday, as quoted by Eurohoops, Silver’s number-two, Mark Tatum, said: “It’s amazing to have someone like Luka, who played in the EuroLeague, return this way to European basketball. He is very excited about our project. He understands the need for a construct and a system that will benefit the sport.”

Doncic joined Real Madrid’s youth academy as a teenager and, by 19, led the club to the 2018 EuroLeague title, winning MVP of the competition and MVP of the Final Four.