As anticipated, the Los Angeles Lakers and Luka Doncic have agreed to phrases on a three-year, maximum-salary contract extension that features a third-year participant possibility, agent Invoice Duffy tells ESPN’s Shams Charania.
The deal will start in 2026-27, changing the participant possibility on Doncic’s present contract. It is going to be value roughly $160.8M over three years primarily based on the NBA’s projection of a 7% cap enhance subsequent summer season. The whole worth may attain $165.3M if the cap finally ends up rising by the utmost allowable 10%.
Doncic put out an announcement confirming the extension.
“I simply signed my extension with the Lakers,” Doncic wrote. “Excited to maintain working to deliver championships to LA and make Laker Nation proud. Grateful to the Lakers, my teammates and all of the followers who’ve proven a lot love since day one. That is just the start.
“Right now I’m additionally committing $5 million to assist 77 younger athletes all over the world chase their desires, identical to I did,” he added. “Basketball gave me all the pieces, and I’m fortunate to have the ability to give again and assist the following technology.”
Lakers president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka additionally launched an announcement.
“Right now is a monumental second for our franchise,” Pelinka mentioned. “Luka Doncic’s future is with the Los Angeles Lakers. Luka is among the recreation’s most transcendent gamers, and his on-court dominance and fervour is with out examine.
“From the second Luka change into a Laker, there was a direct connection and admiration between Luka and our fanbase. You possibly can really feel it in your spirit once you attend a Lakers recreation. Luka is an absolute killer on the courtroom, and blends that with a novel generosity and take care of the group. Above all else, Luka will lead our franchise to pursue future championships, a purpose that may ceaselessly outline the Lakers.”
As we outlined earlier on Saturday, now that six months have handed since Doncic was traded from Dallas to Los Angeles, he has change into eligible to signal a maximum-salary extension that would cowl as much as 4 extra seasons past 2025-26.
Nevertheless, a three-year settlement with a 2028-29 participant possibility makes extra monetary sense for him in the long term, since it’ll enable him to start out his subsequent contract in 2028, as soon as he has 10 years of NBA service and qualifies for the next most wage (beginning at 35% of the cap as an alternative of 30%).
If Doncic waits till 2028 free company to signal his subsequent contract and re-ups with the Lakers on the time, he may get a five-year deal value as much as a whopping $417M. That $417M projection would hinge on the wage cap growing by 10% in every of the following three years, however even with slower cap progress, the five-time All-Star could have a chance for a large, record-setting payday.
The NBA’s Rookie of the 12 months in 2019 and a five-time All-NBA first-teamer from 2020-24, Doncic battled a calf subject final season that restricted him to 50 video games (22 for Dallas and 28 for L.A.). He nonetheless put up his ordinary superlative numbers when he was obtainable, averaging 28.2 factors, 8.2 rebounds, 7.7 assists and 1.8 steals per recreation with a .450/.368/.782 capturing line, however he and the Lakers didn’t advance past the primary spherical of the playoffs after he made the NBA Finals with the Mavericks a 12 months earlier.
Motivated by the early postseason exit and criticism that leaked out of Dallas following February’s blockbuster commerce, Doncic has devoted this offseason to enhancing his physique and his conditioning. He made adjustments to his weight-reduction plan and exercise routine and regarded noticeably slimmed down in a current Males’s Well being picture shoot, as we detailed earlier this week.
We’ll get an opportunity to see the new-look Doncic in motion later this month. He’s set to rejoin the Slovenian nationwide workforce forward of this 12 months’s EuroBasket event. The membership will play a handful of exhibition video games within the coming weeks earlier than the occasion begins on Aug. 27. Slovenia’s group-play schedule will start with an Aug. 28 matchup in opposition to Poland.
As for the Lakers, even with Doncic’s new extension on their books, they’ll have important cap flexibility going ahead. Doncic is their solely participant who at present has a assured wage past the 2026-27 season (Jarred Vanderbilt holds a ’27-28 participant possibility, whereas three different gamers have workforce choices on their contracts).
The extension makes Doncic ineligible to be traded for six months, although it’s secure to imagine that wasn’t an possibility the Lakers have been contemplating.
