Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Dončić just finished off one of the best statistical seasons of his career, but he was mostly unable to experience it with his kids amid a bitter custody battle with ex-fiancée, Anamaria Goltes.
“Obviously, I had a lot on my mind the last year,” Dončić, 27, told Sports Illustrated in a video published Thursday, October 8. “I think this year, I spent the whole summer with my daughters, which was amazing for me. I was very happy just to be with them.”
Dončić’s daughters, Gabriela, 2, and Olivia, 10 months, spent the season living with Goltes, 28, in Slovenia, where the pair is originally from.
“It was pretty hard,” Dončić continued. “I didn’t see them almost the whole season. Yeah, I can’t go another season like that.”
He added, “You want to spend time with your kids every day. So, last season was pretty hard. I saw them for five days in the whole season, which is impossible to do. But you know, I had to focus on basketball.”
Dončić was able to return to Slovenia last December for Olivia’s birth, but an alleged argument between him and Goltes at the time led to police being called to the hospital. The Lakers star reportedly returned to the United States later that day.
He and Goltes split in early 2026, kicking off an ongoing custody battle. In March, Goltes filed a petition seeking child support and attorney fees from Dončić, which the guard alleges he was unaware of until it happened.
“I love my daughters more than anything and I’ve been doing everything I can for them to be with me in the U.S. during the season, but that hasn’t been possible, so I recently made the tough decision to end my engagement,” Dončić said in a statement to ESPN at the time.
A routine foul in Saturday’s Lakers-Magic game spiraled into one of the NBA’s most dramatic on-court confrontations this season — and it all hinged on words spoken in a language the referees couldn’t understand. During the third quarter of Saturday’s game in Orlando, Luka Dončić was driving to the rim when Magic center Goga Bitadze […]
He continued, “Everything I do is for my daughters’ happiness and I will always fight to be with them and give them the best life I can.”
Last week, Dončić filed a “Hague Convention” petition to have his daughters brought from Slovenia to the United States. Such a petition “seeks to organize or secure effective exercise of rights of access to a child,” according to the US State Department’s website.
Just days earlier, he had returned to the United States from spending the summer with his kids, which he chose to do over playing for the Slovenian national team.
“I love my daughters more than anything, and they will always come first in my life,” he wrote via Instagram in May. “As I continue working toward joint custody of my daughters, I have been forced to make a difficult decision between traveling and playing for the Slovenian national team and being with my daughters this summer. Unfortunately, it has been made extremely difficult for me to see them over the past eight months.”
