By the time Marvin “Bad News” Barnes arrived in Italy in the summer of 1980 to play for Lega Basket Serie A team Trieste, his reputation preceded him.
“Bad News” had earned his nickname by, among other things, robbing a bus while still in high school and attacking a college teammate with a tire iron. His brief stint playing in Europe didn’t go much better.
Sex, Drugs, and Pallacanestro
Besides Barnes’ various off-court incidents, the then 28-year-old had a nose for white powder, coke, Colombian marching powder, and snow cones. We’re talking about good, old-fashioned cocaine here, folks.
Barnes loved boga-suga so much, he once did it on the bench as a member of the Boston Celtics, but that’s another story for another day.
So when police raided a party at a Trieste apartment and found four grams of cocaine, no one was surprised when they also found Marvin Barnes and two girls nostrils deep in the good stuff.
Fortunately, Barnes and his two accomplices were not charged with drug offenses.
The strozo renting the apartment and no less than eight of his friends, however, were hit with possession of illegal narcotics charges.
In a surprising twist, Barnes was jailed on “sexual charges” after a preliminary police inquiry. All charges were ultimately dropped, and Barnes was let go, but not before spending a couple of nights in a holding cell with some wise guys learning how to pronounce buongiorno.
Amazingly, this isn’t even what ultimately got Barnes cut from the team.
Marvin “Bad News” Barnes Doesn’t Get Cut, He Quits
After all the off-court drama and several ‘team offenses’, which I have no further insight into, the final straw came when Barnes failed to show up to a team practice.
After this, Hurlingham Trieste officially announced that they had cut Barnes. Only three and a half months after signing him.
In signature “Bad News” swag, Marvin said he actually quit the team before they had a chance to cut him😤
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