As the Los Angeles Lakers superstar Luka Doncic celebrated a victory last year over the Dallas Mavericks, the team that had traded him a couple of months earlier, a business opportunity suddenly arose.
Did he want to help move a professional basketball team to Rome?
The question came from Donnie Nelson, a former Mavericks executive who had brought Mr. Doncic to the National Basketball Association from Europe and was among those celebrating the win. Mr. Doncic barely had to think before answering yes.
The pair are now the lead decision makers of an investment group that has bought a northern Italian basketball team, Vanoli Cremona, from a town that is famous for its violin makers. The group plans to move the team to Rome and submitted a bid to be the Roman representative in the N.B.A.’s ambitious plan to create a league in Europe.
“Since I came to the N.B.A., my dream was always to own a team in Europe, especially because Europe gave me so much,” Mr. Doncic, 27, said this week in his first interview about the venture. Mr. Doncic was raised in Slovenia and as a teenager played for one of Europe’s top professional teams, Real Madrid.
“I grew up there, grew up playing basketball there,” he said.
The push into Europe is part of the N.B.A.’s effort to expand far beyond the United States. The league hopes to establish teams in major cities like London, Paris, Rome and Milan, with an eye toward an inaugural season starting in October next year.
But perhaps none of the other efforts are so prominently attached to a person who is as associated with modern N.B.A. basketball as Mr. Doncic, one of the world’s best players.
The N.B.A. has received dozens of bids, including many from existing European basketball clubs and deep-pocketed outsiders to the sport, with franchise fees ranging from $500 million to over $1 billion. The league is reviewing those bids, according to a person familiar with the process who requested anonymity to discuss private negotiations. The league will ask for a second round of bids, including from new investors, to be submitted by late next month.
The N.B.A. is working with FIBA, a group that governs the sport worldwide, to help create the new league. Initially it seemed that the endeavor could compete directly with Euroleague, the most prestigious professional basketball league in Europe — and where Mr. Doncic first became famous.
“We want our top-tier clubs to make more money, to become sustainable, because the majority of them are not,” Andreas Zagklis, the FIBA secretary general, said about European basketball in a news conference last year about the N.B.A.’s plan.
Many Euroleague officials vowed to fight back. But in February, the Euroleague hired Chus Bueno, who worked for the N.B.A. from 2010 to 2022, as its chief executive. The two entities have started talking about a partnership.
“The best outcome would be if we came together with the Euroleague,” Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, said during a news conference in March.
Mr. Doncic said he hoped that happened.
“I am the player I am because of Euroleague — that will never go away,” Mr. Doncic said. “It’s obviously very important to me.”
Rome does not have a team in that league, and groups vying for its N.B.A. Europe spot are mostly coming from outside the city. The most public competition that Mr. Doncic and Mr. Nelson face may come from a team in Trieste, which is close to Italy’s border with Slovenia.
Trieste has made moves to secure the use of a basketball arena in Rome that is currently the best option in the city. Mr. Nelson and Mr. Doncic’s group has explored leasing that arena, too, but is also looking into a smaller arena as a temporary home, or a tennis stadium that could be equipped with a roof and that is near the stadium where Rome’s soccer teams play.
“I think that we’re optimistic and hopeful that the N.B.A. relationship happens,” Mr. Nelson said. “If it doesn’t happen for whatever reason, we’re still excited about moving forward with the Roman opportunity.”
Mr. Doncic is part of a European wave that has had an outsize impact on the N.B.A. in recent years. For the past two seasons, the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award has gone to a Canadian, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. But in five of the six previous years, the award went to two Europeans — Nikola Jokic of Serbia and Giannis Antetokounmpo of Greece. The league’s best defensive player is Victor Wembanyama of France.
Rome is also a sentimental place for Mr. Doncic. When he was 13 years old and played in a tournament there with his hometown club, Union Olimpija, he scored 54 points with 11 rebounds and 10 assists and was named the event’s most valuable player.
“It was the first time a lot of people from Europe and maybe the U.S. saw me play,” Mr. Doncic said. “It was kind of the start of my career.”
He signed with Real Madrid later that year. Videos of his teenage exploits made him a hot N.B.A. prospect. Mr. Nelson, who was the Mavericks’ top basketball executive until 2021, acquired Mr. Doncic in 2018.
They remained close even after Mr. Nelson left the Mavericks. And when a Lithuanian player Mr. Nelson had also worked with, Rimantas Kaukenas, approached him about the team in Italy, he couldn’t wait to share the idea with Mr. Doncic.
Asked if other opportunities for European ownership had come to him, Mr. Doncic said this was “the best one,” in part because of his relationship with Mr. Nelson. He said he hoped to be a hands-on owner who helped shape the organization and its people for years to come.
“Obviously I’ve started thinking a little bit,” Mr. Doncic said. “But I’m a Laker, and winning the championship right now is the most important thing for me.”
