Los Angeles, CA – August 02: Luka Doncic speaks at a press conference announcing a 3 year extension with the Lakers at the UCLA Health Training Center on Saturday, Aug. 2, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA. (Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Luka Dončić became eligible to sign an extension with the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday, and it didn’t take him long to put pen to paper on a new deal. According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, he’s signing a three-year max extension with a player option in 2028-29, which means he’ll now be under guaranteed contract through 2027-28.
We won’t know exactly how much Dončić will earn on his new deal until next summer, when the NBA sets the salary cap for the 2026-27 campaign. The cap was originally expected to go up by the full 10% that it can increase year-over-year, but thanks in part to the ongoing disruption with regional sports networks, it’s now projected to rise by only 7%, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks.
If the salary cap does rise by exactly 7% next year, it would land at roughly $165.5 million. Dončić’s new deal would thus begin at $49.6 million and would be worth $160.8 million in total. His extension could be worth as much as $165.3 million—the figure that Charania cited when breaking news of the deal—if the cap does rise by the full 10% that it can increase.
Dončić was eligible to sign a four-year extension, but he chose a shorter-term deal to maximize his earning potential. The Lakers can thank the Dallas Mavericks for that.
Had the Mavericks not traded Dončić, he would have been eligible to sign a five-year supermax extension this offseason that began at 35% of the salary cap. Based on the $165.5 million cap projection for the 2026-27 season, that deal would have begun at $57.9 million and would have been worth $335.9 million in total. But once they traded him to the Lakers, he was no longer eligible to sign a 35% supermax. His extension could only start at 30% of the cap, so it topped out at $222.4 million over four years.
In essence, the Mavericks cost Dončić more than $100 million this offseason by trading him.
What Luka could have earned with a supermax, a 4-year extension with the Lakers and his actual 3-year extension.
Bryan Toporek
However, the structure of Dončić’s new extension could help him recoup some of that lost money.
What Luka’s Next Deal Might Look Like
Dončić will become eligible for a 35% max contract once he’s played 10 seasons in the NBA. He’s heading into his eighth season in 2025-26, so he’ll need to play two more years after this one before he can receive a 35% max. Not-so-coincidentally, his new extension has a player option that will allow him to become a free agent exactly when he’s first eligible for a 35% max.
It’s far too early to have an accurate projection of what the salary cap will be in 2028-29. Charania reported that Dončić could be eligible for a five-year, $417 million contract that offseason if he re-signs with the Lakers as a free agent, but that figure is based on the assumption that the salary cap rises by the full 10% each of the next three years. According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, some teams are projecting only 5% annual growth moving forward “just to protect themselves.”
Since the NBA is already projecting that the 2026-27 salary cap will rise by only 7%, the next contract that Dončić signs might not even crack $400 million. If the cap lands at roughly $165.5 million in 2026-27 and then grows by only 5% annually over the following two seasons, it would be $182.4 million in 2028-29. A five-year max deal for Dončić would top out at $370.3 million based on that cap figure. If it grows by 7% annually over each of the next three years, he’d be eligible for a five-year, $384.6 million max in 2028-29.
What Doncic’s next contract could look like based on different salary-cap projections for 2028-29.
Bryan Toporek
No matter what type of extension Dončić signed with the Lakers, there was no way for him to fully recoup what he lost out on by becoming ineligible for a supermax. Regardless of which structure he chose, his salaries in 2026-27 and 2027-28 were going to be smaller than they otherwise could have been in Dallas. However, his player option for the 2028-29 season allows him to maximize his earning potential by signing a contract worth 35% of the salary cap as soon as he becomes eligible for it.
How Luka’s New Extension Maximized His Earning Power
Again, it’s far too soon to come up with accurate projections for the salary cap three years from now. Hypothetically, though, let’s say it increases by 7% annually moving forward. If Dončić declines his player option in 2028-29, the starting salary of his new contract could be as high as $66.3 million. If he picks up his $57.6 million player option in 2028-29 and then becomes a free agent in 2029-30, his new deal could begin at $70.9 million. Had he signed a four-year max extension with the Lakers, his new contract in 2030-31 could have begun at $75.9 million.
It behooves him to lock in the bigger salary as soon as possible. If he signs another max deal with the Lakers in 2028-29, he’d fall only $18 million shy of what he could have earned with the Mavericks between 2026-27 and 2030-31. If he picks up his player option, that would effectively cost him an extra $10 million. Signing a four-year max extension could have cost him nearly $20 million.
Doncic can’t fully reach his supermax value, but the 2+1 deal was clearly the right choice for him financially.
Bryan Toporek
That doesn’t mean that Dončić is guaranteed to become a free agent in 2028-29, though. He’ll be eligible to sign another extension on Aug. 2, 2027, provided he puts pen to paper on Saturday. He could tack on an additional four years to his deal (assuming he declines his player option in 2028-29), or he could wait to become a free agent in 2028 and then re-sign on a five-year deal.
Either way, the Lakers’ ability to offer him 8% annual raises and a no-trade clause should give them a huge advantage over other teams down the road. Any other potential free-agent suitors could only offer him 5% raises and can’t offer a no-trade clause.
For now, the Lakers can rest easy knowing that they have Dončić locked up on a guaranteed contract for the next three years. And Dončić will have roughly 400 million reasons to maintain his All-NBA standard of play during that span.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryantoporek/2025/08/02/luka-doni-maximizes-earning-power-with-165-million-lakers-extension/