{"id":596280,"date":"2026-02-11T07:32:53","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T07:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/596280\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T07:32:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T07:32:53","slug":"luka-doncic-donnie-nelson-led-group-reportedly-buying-italian-team-with-nba-europe-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/596280\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Doncic, Donnie Nelson-led group reportedly buying Italian team with NBA Europe dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luka Doncic and former Dallas Mavericks<\/a> executive Donnie Nelson are going into business together.<\/p>\n

According to a report from The Athletic<\/a>, Doncic and Nelson are a part of an investor group that will be purchasing an Italian basketball team.<\/p>\n

Nelson reportedly has a preliminary agreement to purchase a team from northern Italy, Vanoli Basket Cremona, as a larger play of possibly entering a team into NBA commissioner Adam Silver\u2019s new NBA Europe league.<\/p>\n

Milan-based sports publication La Gazzetta Dello Sport reported that Mavericks icon Dirk Nowitzki was also in the investor group, but Nowitzki\u2019s spokesman Scott Tomlin refuted the report.<\/p>\n

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The 63-year-old Nelson spent 24 years with the Mavericks, including 19 seasons as the team\u2019s president of basketball operations before they parted ways in 2021<\/a>, while Doncic spent the first 6\u00bd seasons of his career in Dallas before he was stunningly traded to the Lakers in Feb. 2025. Nelson notably acquired Doncic for Dallas in a draft night trade with the Atlanta Hawks in 2018 and was the team president during the first three years of Doncic\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

Vanoli Basket is currently in Liga Basket Seria A, the top Italian professional league. The goal is reportedly to take Vanoli Basket\u2019s Liga license and establish a new franchise in Rome. Silver\u2019s vision for NBA Europe includes Rome and Milan in Italy, London and Machester in the United Kingdom, Paris and Lyon in France, Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, Berlin and Munich in Germany and Athens and Istanbul as cities with teams with the goal to launch the league in September 2027.<\/p>\n

The price tag will be hefty, as The Athletic has previously reported a more than $1 billion buy-in<\/a> for a license for a team in London.<\/p>\n

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Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luka Doncic and former Dallas Mavericks executive Donnie Nelson are going into business together. According to a report…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,149,1105,368,166,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-596280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-dallas-mavericks","10":"tag-dirk-nowitzki","11":"tag-luka-doncic","12":"tag-mavericks","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116050841266840249","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}