Homecoming for NBA star player Luka Dončić

Article posted by Coliseum, September 12^th, 2023

Image: WiZink Center, Ilangelo, CC BY-SA 3.0

Before being a National Basketball Association (NBA) (US) most valuable player (MVP) candidate and Mr. Everything for the NBA team Dallas Mavericks, Luka Dončić was a 19-year-old Euroleague MVP and Mr. Everything for Real Madrid Baloncesto (Spain).

‘nbcsports.com’ stated that this preseason, Dončić is going home. For a day. He and the Mavericks are headed to Spain, where they will take on Real Madrid Baloncesto in a preseason game, the NBA announced. The game will be played at the WiZink Center in Madrid (Spain) on October 10^th.

New York (US)-based the National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams. It is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered the premier professional basketball league in the world.

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The Dallas Mavericks are an American professional basketball team based in Dallas, US. The Mavericks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference Southwest Division. The 20,000-capacity American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, serves as their residence.

Luka Dončić is a Slovenian professional basketball player for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He also represents the Slovenian national team and is regarded as one of the greatest European players of all time.

Barcelona (Spain)-based the EuroLeague, known as the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague for sponsorship reasons, is a European men’s professional basketball club competition. The league is widely recognized as the top-tier men’s league in Europe.

The Real Madrid Baloncesto is a Spanish professional basketball club that was founded in 1931, as a division of the Real Madrid CF multisports club. They play domestically in the Liga ACB, and internationally in the EuroLeague and the WiZink Center serves as their home arena.

The Liga ACB, known as Liga Endesa for sponsorship reasons, is the top professional basketball division of the Spanish basketball league system.

The 17,453-capacity Palacio de Deportes de la Comunidad de Madrid, officially the WiZink Center since November 2016 for sponsorship reasons, is an indoor sporting arena located in Madrid, Spain. The former building, which was built in 1960, was destroyed by a fire in 2001.

‘nbcsports.com’ further stated that Real Madrid is the reigning EuroLeague champion (if you’re into the “is the NBA champion the world champion?” debate, this team would be the world’s representative). It features a number of former NBA players including Rudy Fernández (Spanish basketball shooting guard), Mario Hezonja (Croatian professional basketball player), Sergio Rodríguez (Spanish basketball point guard), Džanan Musa (Bosnian professional basketball player), as well as the former NBA draftee Sergio Llull (Spanish basketball point guard).

The NBA has not played a preseason game in Spain since 2016, when a very young Dončić and Real Madrid hosted the NBA team Oklahoma City Thunder.

Dallas is going to spend a chunk of its preseason on the road. Before heading to Spain and an emotional homecoming for Dončić, he and the Mavericks will play two preseason games against their peer team the Minnesota Timberwolves on October 5^th and October 7^th in Abu Dhabi (UAE). It will be interesting to see if all that traveling impacts Dončić – who is currently playing in Japan with the Slovenian national team at the World Cup – as well as Kyrie Irving and the rest of the Mavericks at the start of the NBA season later in October as the NBA 2023-2024 seasons start on October 24^th and will end on April 14^th, 2024.

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