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Marc Stein: UPDATE: After strong interest from Rome’s new Serie A team, Pistons adviser Dwane Casey has withdrawn from the process to stay in the NBA with Detroit, league sources say. Donnie Nelson, who worked with Casey in Dallas, led BC Roma’s pursuit of the 2018 NBA Coach of the Year.
Marc Stein: Pistons adviser Dwane Casey has emerged as a head coaching candidate for BC Roma SPQR, which was recently co-founded by former Mavericks GM Donnie Nelson alongside Luka Dončić, @TheSteinLine has learned. The club is also weighing European candidates for its debut Serie A season.
Buss Sports Capital, a business venture launched by Joey and Jesse Buss following the sale of the Los Angeles Lakers, is actively pursuing NBA Europe franchises in multiple markets, sources briefed on their plans told The Athletic. The group has placed multiple bids for ownership in the developing league, including in London; Manchester, England; and Lyon, France. The sources, granted anonymity so they could speak freely about ownership strategies, said that a venture by Lakers star Luka Dončić and former Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson Jr. in Italy could also be a possibility.
The newly revealed team name, Basketball Club Roma SPQR, marks a groundbreaking moment for Italian basketball by successfully uniting global sports ambition with a deep reverence for continental traditions. Spearheaded by an ownership group featuring Donnie Nelson and Slovenian superstar Luka Doncic, the new team aims to elevate Rome back to the forefront of the game. Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport during a visit to the capital, the leader of the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA shared his deep personal motivation for the venture. “Owning a team in Europe is something I’ve always dreamed of,” he reaffirmed his reaction and long-held ambitions. “I grew up playing European basketball, and that’s what shaped me. When Donnie Nelson presented me with this opportunity, I said yes right away. It felt like the right choice and an extraordinary way to help grow this sport.”
That's the same title Donnie Nelson held with the Mavericks for nearly 20 years. And Nelson, I'm told, was quietly interviewed by the Raptors last summer after Ujiri's departure as part of a search they conducted in the buildup to announcing Webster as Ujiri’s full-time successor in August 2025. Former Raptors coach Dwane Casey, who currently holds an advisory role with Detroit, also featured in Toronto's search.
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The scout realized a trait of Brunson’s that day, one that then-Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson already valued when he insisted on plucking Jalen Brunson with that 33rd overall pick. Brunson, he told colleagues, had “gold dust” on him. The descriptor made its way around the Mavs scouting department. As one person with the organization defined the term, “He just f—ing wins.” Brunson, as plenty around him put it, was covered in gold dust. Especially these days, with a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals, the New York Knicks are witnessing that powder puff into the air with each step he takes.
Now a player he thought compared to other unconventional all-time greats he had drafted -- Steve Nash and Tim Hardaway -- had somehow fallen to his team at No. 33. "All I know is he had the same things that Hardaway and Nash had -- heart, brains and balls," Nelson told ESPN. "Those are things that generally don't fit into an analytics model."
Behind this undertaking is an investment group led by former NBA official Donnie Nelson, in which the Slovenian superstar Luka Doncic is one of the main investors. The operational part of the deal will be led by Rimantas Kaukenas, while the legendary Valerio Bianchini the creator of the greatest successes of Roman basketball, is also involved in the whole story. "For me, this is not just a simple financial investment. I want to build a club that can compete at the highest level and that will mean something to Roma, because they deserve the best, and we are ready to give them that," Doncic started for Gazzeta Dello Sport.
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.
“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.”
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Rome will again have a basketball team at the top European level, and it’s not Virtus Roma, the club that stopped existing in 2021. As “Gazzetta dello Sport” reports, on Tuesday afternoon (12/5), the Italian basketball federation is expected to formally approve the move of Vanoli Cremona Basketball, a club founded in 1999, to the Italian Capital.
Former Dallas GM Donnie Nelson is leading the consortium behind this move. Luka Doncic is among the investors, while former player Rimantas Kaukenas, who competed in Italy for Siena and Reggio Emilia, is also among the club representatives. What’s interesting in the report is that the club is also presented as interested in a wildcard for the EuroLeague or the EuroCup.
One prominent NBA agent told Andscape he wouldn’t be surprised if NBA stars from Europe like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Dončić would be interested in ownership in NBA Europe. Dončić is part of an investor group headed by ex-Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson that is seeking to bring a team to Rome as part of NBA Europe, The Athletic has reported. The BAL is also expected to transition to a franchise-based system by 2027, with 10 permanent franchises and two annual qualifiers. An owner of a team playing in the BAL this season told Andscape that the NBA that is having conversations with potential franchise owners for teams that could have a starting price of about $50 million.
Luka Doncic is part of an investor group headed by former Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson that is seeking to bring a team to Rome as part of NBA Europe, three sources told The Athletic. Nelson, 63, the son of legendary former NBA coach and executive Don Nelson, has a preliminary agreement in place to purchase an existing basketball team from northern Italy, Vanoli Basket Cremona, to potentially set up a much larger play of entering a team into NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s new European league.