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Luka Dončić Wants to Own Rome — and He’s Betting on the NBA’s European Future to Do It
Luka Dončić just made the most fascinating off-court move of the year. The Lakers superstar — fresh off another All-NBA season in his first full year in Los Angeles — has joined an investor group that bought Italian club Vanoli Cremona, with plans to move the team to Rome for the 2026-27 season. The real prize is bigger: the group has bid for that club to become Rome’s franchise in the NBA’s planned new league, NBA Europe. “I have dreamed about owning a team in Europe for a long time,” Dončić said. For one of the greatest European players the NBA has ever seen, it’s part homecoming, part power play — a bet that the game’s future on his home continent is about to get very lucrative.
A Reunion, and a Foothold
The group is led by Donnie Nelson — the former Mavericks executive who engineered the 2018 draft-night trade that pried Dončić away from Atlanta and launched his NBA career. Reuniting with the man who bet on him at 19, Dončić is now a partner alongside Nelson, legendary Italian coach Valerio Bianchini, and former European standout Rimantas Kaukėnas.
Buying Vanoli Cremona wasn’t sentiment — it was strategy. The club’s spot in Lega Basket Serie A, Italy’s top league, hands the group an instant domestic license, and that’s the golden key: any NBA Europe franchise will be expected to keep competing at home too. Then there’s the target itself. Rome — one of the great sports cities on earth — currently has no top-flight basketball team. That’s not a gap. That’s an open lane.
What Is NBA Europe?
The deal only makes sense against the NBA’s most ambitious international play ever. Commissioner Adam Silver has confirmed the league is building NBA Europe with FIBA — a brand-new top-tier competition that could tip off as soon as fall 2027. The proposed shape: 16 teams, 12 permanent franchises plus four clubs that qualify season to season on domestic performance. The target host cities read like a grand tour — Rome and Milan, London and Manchester, Paris and Lyon, Madrid and Barcelona, Munich and Berlin, plus Athens and Istanbul. Landing one of those 12 permanent slots is the endgame, and the Rome bid is Dončić’s opening move.
Star Power Meets a Bigger Trend
Dončić isn’t acting alone, and he isn’t the first to see it. There’s no rule barring active NBA players from owning European clubs: Kevin Durant holds a stake in Paris Saint-Germain’s basketball arm, Tony Parker owns ASVEL near Lyon (a team widely expected to join NBA Europe), and Pau Gasol has floated interest in a leadership role in the new league. But Dončić, still in the prime of his playing career, is the highest-wattage active star to plant a flag in ownership abroad — and his global brand is exactly the rocket fuel a startup league dreams about.
Plenty is still unsettled: ownership rules for active players, the conflict-of-interest questions that come with them, and Serie A rules that reportedly impose a two-year wait before a relocated club can change its name. But the direction is unmistakable. The NBA wants Europe, Europe’s biggest current export wants in, and Rome — a sleeping giant — looks ready to wake up.
The Bottom Line
This is a story to watch on both sides of the Atlantic. Dončić is putting his name, his money, and his vision behind growing the game where he came up — and if NBA Europe launches on schedule in 2027, a Dončić-backed Rome club could be one of its marquee attractions. His playing career is nowhere near done. He’s just already building what comes after it.
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