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Travis BestBest signed this season with Martos Napoli, a SerieA team that came into being this summer when former team Solsonica Rieti changed both their city and their sponsor. He joined fellow Americans
Kevin Kruger,
Damon Jones and
Robert Traylor there, increasing the ex-NBA lilt that was designed to make the interesting. It kind of worked. Even
Lance Allred was there for a while. But none of it seemed to help on the court, as Napoli trickled out to an 0-10 start. Despite the big name midseason acquisitions of Best and Jones, they kept on losing. And the players weren't getting paid either.
At 0-10, things managed to get worse. The club officially ran out of money, and players started to leave, Kruger amongst them. Another loss followed before Christmas, at which point all the first team players went home to their families. They never came back. In their first game after Christmas, on Sunday evening, Napoli could only fielded their youth team players, inexperienced and undertalented 17 year olds going against one of the better teams in one of the world's best leagues. They played Angellico Biella in that game, and lost 124-54. That's not a typo; they lost by 70 points in a SerieA game. A 40 minute SerieA game. Nothing has been resolved in the mean time; no new sponsors have come in, no new money has been found, and no players have come back. If they're able to do business next Sunday, they're up against Lottomatica Roma, and things should go much the same way as the 70 point annihilation. Even if they somehow do the impossible, stave off a winding-up order and play out the season, they're screwed.
(If you wish to become Napoli's new sponsor,
why not use their sponsors email account? Please give two pounds a month, or whatever you can afford.)
For what it's worth, which is nothing, Best totalled 11 points and 3 assists in 61 minutes.
