Luka Doncic contract: Lakers trade takes largest NBA deal ever off table, but he could eventually get $400M

Luka Doncic, the newest Los Angeles Laker, is already a very wealthy man. He’s in the middle of a five-year, $215 million contract that he could retire on if he wanted to. But before Saturday, he was about to get quite a bit richer. This summer, Doncic could have extended with the Dallas Mavericks on a five-year contract at a projected $345 million. It could have been the largest contract in NBA history.

The problem is that he is no longer a Dallas Maverick. As of Saturday night, Doncic plays for the Los Angeles Lakers. While this is going to create some very lucrative off-court opportunities for Doncic, it is going to cost him quite a bit of money on it. Why? Because Doncic is no longer eligible for a supermax contract.

A player’s maximum salary is based on how much NBA experience he has. Doncic has seven years of experience, meaning he would typically be eligible to sign a deal starting at 30% of the salary cap. However, when a player is either on his original team or playing for a team that traded for him during the first four seasons of his career, he can become eligible for up to 35% of the cap, the max typically available only to players with 10 or more years of experience, if he reaches certain benchmarks. Doncic, having made All-NBA teams in each of the past two seasons, already qualified.

But it doesn’t matter now. He’s no longer a Maverick, so he is not eligible to sign a supermax deal regardless of his performance, and as an added bummer, he goes from a state without an income tax in Texas to a high-tax state in California. Doncic will still be paid handsomely, of course, but he just lost a decent chunk of change here.

So, what will Doncic’s next contract looks like? That depends on when he signs it and what his primary goals are in doing so. If Doncic decides he just wants to extend for the most money possible with the Lakers this offseason, he’d be looking at a four-year extension at around $228.6 million on top of the roughly $43 million he is already owed, bringing his contract total to around $271.6 million. Here is how that deal would break down:

Luka Doncic contract: Signs Lakers extension in 2025

*Existing contract

So, how do we get to this number? The 2025-26 salary is set in stone. The 2026-27 number, however, would rely on Doncic declining his existing player option and re-signing at 30% of the projected salary cap. How do we project the salary cap? Well, the CBA allows raises up to 10% each year, and because of the new TV deal, the cap is widely expected to grow by that 10% figure every summer for the foreseeable future.

Therefore, we get a projected cap of $170,111,480 for the 2026-27 season, and 30% of that is our 2026-27 salary of roughly $51 million. From there, Doncic would get the maximum allowable 8% raise of just under $4.1 million. We apply that raise to each season and voila, we have a contract. 

This is the contract that maximizes Doncic’s financial security. However, the longer he waits, the more upside he can extract for himself. Say, for instance, he wants to wait until 2026 free agency to re-sign with the Lakers. The numbers in the first four years of the deal wouldn’t change. He’d be eligible for the same 30% max and 8% annual raises, but he would be eligible to sign for a fifth season, bringing the total contract up to a robust $296 million over five years.

Luka Doncic contract: Signs Lakers extension in 2026

The other potential benefit to waiting for 2026 free agency? It would give him the chance to sign with another team if he is not confident that the Lakers can put a winner around him. Notably, Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs lurk here as a possible destination with max cap space that summer if they elect not to trade for De’Aaron Fox or add any other superstar ahead of time. Doncic would have the same starting salary if he signed with a different team. However, there would be two key differences: he could only sign for four years, and he’d be capped at 5% annual raises rather than 8%. Here’s what such a contract would look like.

Luka Doncic contract: Signs elsewhere in 2026

All of these concepts are based on the idea that Doncic will want to sign the longest possible deal available to him at the time. That is not necessarily his best course of action. We’re talking about Luka Doncic here. Security doesn’t need to be a priority for him. Barring something unforeseen, he should feel reasonably confident in his ability to land a max contract no matter what happens in the next few seasons. Therefore, you could argue that his best course would be to maximize upside rather than security.

How would he do that? Simple: become eligible for a 35% max contract again. He can’t do that before earning 10 years of experience, but why not simply wait to reach 10 years organically? With this plan, Doncic would sign a two-year extension with a player option on the third season, which would be his 11th season overall. That way, he could sign a new deal after his 10th season at 35% of the max. Let’s break that down contract-by-contract, starting with the extension he’d sign with the Lakers this summer:

Luka Doncic contract: Maximizing earnings (Part 1)

*Player option

Under this plan, Doncic would guarantee himself more than $165 million on his next deal with the Lakers. However, he’d likely opt out after the second season, making him a free agent after his 10th season. He would then re-sign on a five-year deal starting at 35% of the cap. For the sake of ease, we are assuming continued, annual 10% growth in the cap. Therefore, this projects a 2028-29 cap of $205.8 million.

Luka Doncic contract: Maximizing earnings (Part 2)

Yes, you are reading that correctly. Under this plan, Doncic would make more than $1 million per game during the 2031-32 season, and he would make more than $400 million in total. The catch is that there are variables involved. It’s possible that the cap doesn’t rise 10% annually, and a different cap means a different max. Doncic could get hurt and lower his value between now and then, even if that’s unlikely. This is the high-risk, high-reward approach for him.

Doncic is going to make his money one way or another. The path to doing so is just a bit trickier for him now than it was yesterday. Ultimately, the Lakers, or whoever Doncic signs his next contract with should he choose to explore free agency, emerge as the winners here. Had Doncic re-signed in Dallas this summer and then gotten traded, he’d be making a heck of a lot more on his next deal than he will be now. His next contract will now be at a slightly discounted rate. It’s up to the Lakers to figure out how to maximize that advantage.