A two-year contract convinced Marco Spissu to return to Italy
The new Guerri Napoli Basket continues to take shape ahead of the upcoming season. Yesterday, the Neapolitan club reached a one-year agreement with Zac Seljaas, a 2-meter American forward coming off a stint with Asvel Villeurbanne, while talks continue to sign Marco Spissu and Andrej Jakimovski. These two negotiations are now well underway and could be made official in the coming hours, thereby finalizing a significant portion of the roster entrusted to Jasmin Repesa.
The club, however, has no intention of stopping there. The main target remains Marco Spissu, who became a free agent after spending the last two seasons in Zaragoza. The Sardinian point guard, born in 1995, parted ways with the Spanish club after scoring the game-winning basket that secured the team’s place in the league. Napoli has been working for some time to bring him back to Serie A and entrust him with leading the team as it faces the dual challenge of the league and the EuroCup. Negotiations are now down to the final details, and only the club’s official announcement is pending. A two-year contract is in the works.
The path that has brought Spissu this far has been anything but straightforward. After his years with Dinamo Sassari, the point guard had a troubled stint with Málaga, which was cut short almost immediately after he failed his medical exams, before joining Unics Kazan and then returning to Italy with Reyer Venezia in 2022. On June 21, 2024, he finally signed a two-year deal with Zaragoza. His final season in Spain was not without its share of turbulence: in May, the club decided to fire head coach Joan Plaza, handing the reins to Gonzalo García de Vitoria in an attempt to avoid relegation to the Primera FEB. The team ultimately avoided relegation at the very last moment, thanks to the Sardinian’s buzzer-beating three-pointer against Rio Breogan—a moment that has already gone down in the Aragonese club’s history. Before accepting Napoli’s offer, Spissu had turned down a significant offer from Dinamo Sassari, which will compete in A2 next season, confirming his desire to remain in the top flight.
As for Jakimovski, the Neapolitan club is banking on a young but already seasoned player. The forward, born in 2001 in Macedonia but raised in the Italian basketball system, exercised the opt-out clause in his contract that would have kept him with Dolomiti Energia Trentino through the 2026–2027 season. During his time in Trento, Jakimovski played in 55 official games, averaging 9.2 points and 4.9 rebounds, shooting 52.2% from two-point range and 32.3% from three-point range. Among his most notable performances this season was the game against JL Bourg-en-Bresse in the EuroCup, when he put on an extraordinary display with 30 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and a player rating of 43—an all-time record in Aquila Basket’s history for a single game.
The coaching staff led by Jasmin Repesa, supported by the young Croatian assistant coach Roko Dominovic, is building a deep and versatile roster consisting of 13–14 players, following the formula of six Italians and six foreign players.
