{"id":131776,"date":"2025-03-31T07:00:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=131776"},"modified":"2025-03-31T00:04:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T04:04:23","slug":"lakers-luka-doncic-tim-macmahon-supermax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/31\/lakers-luka-doncic-tim-macmahon-supermax\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Expert Offers Substantial Number for Lakers’ Luka Don\u010di\u0107’s Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0<\/span>Dallas Mavericks<\/span><\/a>\u00a0decision to trade now-<\/span>Los Angeles Lakers<\/span><\/a>\u00a0star\u00a0<\/span>Luka\u00a0Don\u010di\u0107<\/span><\/a>\u00a0continues to reverberate around the league to the front steps of American Airlines Center and streets of downtown Dallas. Will those reverberations ever cease? Only time will tell. There are theories, rumors, and stories linked to the truth behind the Mavs organization’s decision to ship out the city’s beloved superstar. Money is usually involved in a star’s departure from a team. According to ESPN’s and\u00a0<\/span>The Hoop Collective Podcast<\/span><\/em>\u00a0regular Tim MacMahon, money definitely played a role in Dallas.<\/span><\/p>\n

NBA Expert Offers Substantial Number for Lakers’ Luka Don\u010di\u0107’s Worth<\/h2>\n

ESPN’s NBA Expert Tim MacMahon Says League Sources See Luka\u00a0Don\u010di\u0107 As a $100 Million Man<\/h3>\n

If money was at the center of it all, it was supermax related\u2014a deal\u00a0Don\u010di\u0107 was due for soon. Now, he won’t be eligible despite hitting free agency in 2026. Of course, Luka won’t need to worry about that too much. The Lakers will undoubtedly offer him a highly persuasive number. Los Angeles didn’t agree to the trade if they didn’t have a plan to convince Don\u010di\u0107 to remain for the long-term future. While it took some time to come to grips with his new reality, Don\u010di\u0107 appears to be loving his time in LA, playing alongside\u00a0<\/span>LeBron James<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>being coached by JJ Redick<\/span><\/a>. Undoubtedly, Jeanie Buss and Rob Pelinka will do whatever they must to ensure Luka signs permanently. <\/span><\/p>\n

According to MacMahon, that supermax is the reason Dallas wanted to move on.\u00a0<\/span>In speaking with Lakers insider Jovan Buha on\u00a0<\/span><\/a>Buha’s Block<\/span><\/a><\/em>\u00a0podcast<\/span><\/a>, MacMahon, who just wrote a book about Don\u010di\u0107 titled\u00a0<\/span>The Wonder Boy<\/span><\/em>, suggested that $100 million is the number Luka could demand in accordance with his value.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey feared giving them the supermax, which I didn\u2019t know that until they traded him. Really, it\u2019s like, you think the supermax is a bad deal for this guy?” <\/em>MacMahon said about Dallas. “Let\u2019s be honest, like you talk to people around the league, and I\u2019ve asked a lot, I ask analytics people, what\u2019s his value?\u00a0And a lot of them will tell me he\u2019s $100 million value. $100 million per year. Supermax is a little under 70 average.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Supermax Out of the Picture, Luka Will Get His Money<\/h2>\n

Even for Luka, $100 million per season in the NBA sounds way out of left field. <\/span>Joel Embiid<\/span><\/a>\u00a0earns the most of any active player ($64.3) per year across the extent of his current contract. He rakes in $51.4 million per season. <\/span>Nikola Joki\u0107 earns the same per season as Embiid<\/span><\/a> until 2026-27, where the numbers slightly shift.\u00a0<\/span>Steph Curry<\/span><\/a> earns $55.7 for this current season, the most per season of all players. MacMahon stated that the supermax is a little under $70 million.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lakers would be crazy to offer Luka almost $30 million above the average to get him to remain a Laker. That said, it is the Lakers, and if any team could pull it off, it would likely be them. Luckily for LA, they won’t have to go this distance, considering that the supermax is off the table. Still, whatever deal they eventually offer up to Don\u010di\u0107 will be sweet enough\u2014whatever it takes to keep him Hollywood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Petre Thomas-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Dallas Mavericks\u00a0decision to trade now-Los Angeles Lakers\u00a0star\u00a0Luka\u00a0Don\u010di\u0107\u00a0continues to reverberate around the league to the front steps of American Airlines Center and streets of downtown Dallas. Will those reverberations ever cease? Only time will tell. There are theories, rumors, and stories linked to the truth behind the Mavs organization’s decision to ship out the city’s beloved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":131777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1608,62],"tags":[267,38,1133,72,48],"class_list":["post-131776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lakers","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-joel-embiid","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-stephen-curry"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131776"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131794,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131776\/revisions\/131794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}