Robert Traylor

- Robert Traylor - Covered in depth here, Traylor hasn't had the best time of it lately. But even though he's fallen out of the NBA landscape, he's being incredibly productive in lesser leagues. Traylor was never a particularly good NBA player and only ever a role player, but his career PER of 14.5 testifies that he was always a pretty good one. Maybe he still could be.

August 2005: Robert Traylor

Throughout his career, Robert Traylor has been overweight. It was part of the reason why he never lived up to his draft billing; because he could never keep up, Traylor could never stop fouling. In the 2005 offseason, Cleveland declined his team option and made him a free agent, at which point Traylor agreed to sign with the Nets. But New Jersey vetoed the deal once their physical revealed that Traylor was suffering from a serious heart condition. They advised him to stay away from the game.

It is hard to say what kind of impact Traylor's heart condition has had on his career. His career has certainly been derailed, but that was at least in part due to this. All we know for sure is that Traylor had aortic valve surgery in the autumn of 2006, and has not played in the NBA since that time. However, as the previous link showed, he has played. And he's played rather well at that.

Robert Traylor - 28 games, 29.5 mpg, 9.8 ppg, 9.7 rpg, 2.5 apg, 3.5 fpg, 1.1 spg, 1.1 bpg, 46% FG, 0% 3PT, 69% FT

As you have probably already heard about, Robert Traylor owes a lot of money to the IRS. And he has a repayment plan to adhere to to give it back. But this has proven difficult. Traylor was the Turkish league All-Star Game MVP in 2008/09, averaging 14.3ppg, 8.4rpg, 2.1apg and 1.6bpg per game for Kepez BLD Antalya. Yet this summer's move to the better standard (and better paid) Serie A did not work out. This is because Traylor joined Napoli, and, as regular readers will know by now, Napoli had the worst season in the history of sports. The bankrupt team weren't exactly the ideal match for the indebted Traylor, who left after seven games without being paid. He then tried to get a playing gig in China, but this was vetoed by the league due to his tax problems. Those problems culminated in February; behind on his pre-determined repayment schedule due to his inability to find elite paying gigs, Traylor was sentenced to a 60 day jail term last season, which had earlier been suspended so that he could go and play for Napoli. That sentence is suspended until June 1st; in the mean time, Traylor is playing in Puerto Rico. He was named to the All-Star team last month, and is allowed to keep playing for Bayamon until their season ends, whenever that may be. But once it does end, Traylor must report to jail.

(If he needs money, maybe he could sell that watch.)