The line was short, sharp, and personal. The kind of trash talk that doesn’t need a follow-up because everyone on the floor already knows the backstory.
“Shoulda signed that contract baby.” — Luka Dončić to Dennis Schröder.
“Shoulda signed that contract baby.”
— Luka to Dennis Schroder 💀
(via _MichaelMorales10/IG, h/t @LALMuse)pic.twitter.com/lBsKMipjs5
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) December 31, 2025
Dončić’s comment, captured courtside and quickly circulated online, came during the Lakers’ recent matchup with the Sacramento Kings, a game in which Schröder, now with Sacramento, came off the bench while Dončić powered Los Angeles in a 125–101 win.
The jab wasn’t random: it was a direct reference to Schröder’s much-discussed decision to pass on a reported four-year, $84 million extension offer from the Lakers back in 2021.
That contract decision has followed Schröder for years as a cautionary tale about betting on yourself in a league where markets shift fast. Dončić, never shy about needling an opponent, simply weaponized the most famous fork-in-the-road moment of Schröder’s NBA career, and did it with the casual tone of someone re-opening an old group chat argument.
But what made the exchange feel bigger than a typical regular-season chirp is that Dončić and Schröder’s friction isn’t new, and it isn’t just NBA stuff. These two have been colliding, jawing, and trying to out-alpha each other in international play for a while, too, where pride tends to burn even hotter because the jersey represents more than a franchise.
At the 2023 FIBA World Cup, FIBA itself framed their matchup as a “Dennis vs Dončić” duel, with Germany’s Schröder getting the better of Slovenia in a high-stakes meeting on the way to Germany’s title run.
Fast forward to EuroBasket 2025, and the rivalry got another signature chapter: Germany eliminated Slovenia 99–91 in the quarterfinals despite a huge scoring night from Dončić.
That history matters because it explains why their NBA encounters don’t feel like random animosity. The tone is familiar. The energy is already pre-heated. When they see each other, it isn’t just “two guards competing.” It’s two national-team leaders who’ve traded big moments on big stages, now carrying that edge into an NBA environment where cameras catch everything and one sentence can become a week-long storyline.
So when Dončić tossed out, “Shoulda signed that contract baby,” it landed like more than a meme. It was a reminder that rivalries don’t always come from playoff series. Sometimes they come from summers, national anthems, and years of seeing the same guy across the line with a different country on his chest, and never quite forgetting it.
