Lakers star Luka Doncic, as well as Hall of Famer and Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki, reportedly are part of former Dallas general manager Donnie Nelson’s investor group looking to buy a basketball team in Rome, with an eye toward NBA Europe, which Adam Silver has pushed for and appears on track to open in 2027.
This group, with some clearly deep-pocketed investors partnering with them, are looking to buy Vanoli Basket, from Cremona in northern Italy, to get access to their La Liga license, setting up a much-larger play to be one of the 12 lisenced franchose in NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s proposed new European league, reports Joe Vardon, Sam Amick and Mike Vorkunov at The Athletic.
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Vanoli Basket is a license holder in Liga Basket Seria A, the top Italian pro league, and any team competing in NBA Europe must also play in a domestic league. Multiple sources said Vanoli Basket was being purchased for its Liga license. With that in hand, those sources said, Nelson, Dončić, Nowitzki and their partners would then establish an essentially new franchise about 330 miles away in Rome.
The new NBA Europe league will have 12 stakeholder teams that compete in it every year, a few of them likely existing powerhouse European clubs — Real Madrid and Barcelona are two that have been linked to the NBA — as well as new, or dramatically upgraded teams in other markets, such as soccer powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain fielding a squad in that city. The buy-in for these teams, or new teams, to join NBA Europe could reach as high as $1 billion in some cases.
The other four spots in the league would need to be earned annually through performance in the domestic leagues.
Rome is one of the cities mentioned as a target by NBA Europe, and it does not currently have a high-level team there.
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Doncic and Nowitzki are two of the greatest European players in the NBA. There is no ban on NBA players owning a stake in these European teams (Kevin Durant is an investor in Paris Saint-Germain), and it’s not clear how much of the team they may own, but there is no cap on their ownership levels (as there are with players owning part of a WNBA team, for example). Having those names can help establish a team and sell it in a market where NBA Europe will compete with the existing domestic basketball leagues (the NBA Europe teams would have to compete in domestic leagues), the existing basketball EuroLeague, and the popularity of other sports on the continent, such as soccer and cricket.
The NBA is targeting a fall 2027 launch of NBA Europe. The NBA sees a European basketball market that is not marketed or maximized as a business — leaving money on the table — which is something the NBA specializes in. How fans will receive the new league is something we will find out in a couple of years, but the NBA is bringing big names and big money to the table.
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