Did Casino Billionaire Miriam Adelson Orchestrate Luka Doncic to Lakers Trade?

Posted on: February 2, 2025, 02:39h. 

Last updated on: February 3, 2025, 05:39h.

The NBA Dallas Mavericks, whose controlling stakeholder is Las Vegas Sands casino tycoon, Dr. Miriam Adelson, shocked the sports world late Saturday night by announcing a trade that will send its superstar, Luka Doncic, to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Miriam Adelson Luka Doncic Dallas Mavericks
Did Dr. Miriam Adelson have a say in the NBA Dallas Mavericks shipping its best player, Luka Doncic, to the Los Angeles Lakers? Mark Cuban is said to remain in control of day-to-day dealings despite selling Adelson and her family 73% of the NBA team in 2023. (Image: SI)

The midseason stunner will ship L.A. All-Star big man Anthony Davis, along with Max Christie and the Lakers’ 2029 first-round pick, to Dallas. Along with Doncic, Los Angeles receives Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris.

The trade of Luka, 25, one of the NBA’s biggest superstars who was the league’s scoring champion last year, is shocking.

This offseason, Doncic would have become eligible for a supermax extension — a five-year, $345 million package — that would have made him the highest-paid player in the NBA. Instead, Dallas shipped off their franchise’s face. The trade also reduces the maximum contract he can demand after this season in Los Angeles to a five-year, $229 million deal.

Supermax contracts are only available to players entering their eighth or ninth season, who made the previous year’s All-NBA Team, and who remain with the team that originally drafted the player. Supermax contracts allow players to seek a starting salary between 30-35% of a team’s salary cap. The supermax terms are designed to keep players in the cities where they became stars.

There are many possible reasons why the Mavs let Doncic go, including escalating concerns about his conditioning, which has led to Luka spending much time on the injured reserve this season. Doncic has played just 22 games this season, though he’s remained productive when on the court with 28.1 points per game with eight rebounds, eight assists, and two steals. 

Adelson Speculation 

In late 2023, Miriam Adelson, along with her daughter Sivan Dumont and son-in-law Patrick Dumont, acquired a 73% ownership position in the Dallas Mavericks from billionaire Mark Cuban. Adelson paid about $3.5 billion for the controlling stake. Cuban retained control of the remaining 27% interest.

Along with the possibility that the Mavericks front office, which is reportedly still led by Cuban, had unease about extending a $345 million contract to keep the team’s best player in Dallas on those conditioning worries, rumblings on social media have raised deeper concerns. The rumor mill is in full swing, churning out gossip that the Luka to Lakers development could be about politics.

Adelson is among the biggest allies of the Israeli State, using her and her late husband Sheldon Adelson’s political influence to convince President Donald Trump to relocate the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem during his first administration. Doncic is a Slovenian-born hoops star. His country, though an ally of Israel, last summer formally recognized the State of Palestine — only the fourth European nation to do so. 

In a November 2023 op-ed in the Israel Hayom, a media outlet she owns along with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Adelson wrote that Hamas supporters are enemies of the Jewish community and should be considered “dead to us.”

If you condemn Hamas and then add a ‘but’ followed by condemnation of Israel, you’re dead to us. If you insist Israel is obligated to seek accommodation with Hamas, an idea you would never have entertained for Western powers that fought the Nazis, al-Qaida, or ISIS, you’re dead to us,” Adelson wrote.

In recognizing Palestine, the Slovenian government last June said the two countries “have established good relations … underpinned by regular political dialogue. The two countries also collaborate in education and humanitarian aid, including by implementing a variety of humanitarian projects.”

Doncic represented Slovenia in the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics, though the team didn’t make it through qualifying last summer in Paris.

Mavs to Las Vegas? 

Another popular rumor on social media is that Adelson is following the playbook of the fictional Rachel Phelps, the former showgirl who inherits the MLB Cleveland Indians in the cult movie Major League. In the film, Phelps, played by Margaret Whitton, hopes the team will fail so she can move the franchise to Miami.

When Adelson bought the Mavs in 2023, the conjecture was that her influence in Texas could lead to commercial integrated resort casinos being legalized, something Cuban has long supported. However, with the odds of slot machines and table games coming to Texas seemingly remaining long, the rumor mill could be on to something in that Las Vegas is a more attractive market for Adelson’s Sands to create a new casino resort with an NBA arena on or near the Strip.  

Las Vegas has become a major sports town in recent years. There has been much assumption in recent years that it won’t be long until the NBA and MLB join the NFL, NHL, and WNBA in having teams based in Sin City.