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It was the Philadelphia 76ers that stepped up to the plate and struck an agreement with Guerschon Yabusele to bring him back to the NBA after spending a few years plying his trade in Europe. Yabusele was a breakout star in the 2024 Paris Olympics as he played a huge role in leading France to a silver-medal finish.
But amid interest from a few teams, Yabusele revealed that signing with the 76ers was his only clear choice. After all, the 28-year-old forward believes that Philadelphia is the team that will give him a realistic shot at impacting the team instead of just being left to languish on the bench.
“I feel like that was the only team that would give me a shot. It was just a situation and everything looks pretty good for me so I’m excited to join the team,” Yabusele said of joining the 76ers, via USA Today's Sixers Wire.
Indeed, despite making plenty of additions this offseason to bolster the roster around Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, the 76ers still had a lot of question marks in the power forward position. Prior to signing Yabusele, the 76ers only had Kenyon Martin Jr. as the nominal power forward on the roster, which meant that the likes of Paul George, Kelly Oubre Jr., and Caleb Martin would have to play up a position.
But now, Yabusele gives the 76ers more size and toughness in the frontcourt, not to mention a pinch of shot-making. He was France's second-leading scorer in the 2024 Olympics, averaging 14.0 points per game on 52 percent shooting from the field. He was money from midrange, and he could even get up near the basket, as evidenced by his epic poster jam over LeBron James in the gold medal game against Team USA.
The stars have aligned for Yabusele to potentially become a major piece for the 76ers. He waited patiently for his second chance in the NBA after washing out of the league in 2019, and now, he is holding his NBA fate in his fingertips.
French 76ers connection strengthens Guerschon Yabusele's Philly link
From a basketball perspective, joining the 76ers already made a ton of sense for Guerschon Yabusele, as discussed above. But the factor that fully convinced him to sign with Philadelphia was the encouragement of French compatriot Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, who belongs to the same NBA draft class as Yabusele (2016).
Luwawu-Cabarrot began his NBA career with the 76ers, and he had already introduced the city of Philadelphia to Yabusele, leaving an impression on the 28-year-old forward. Yabusele then sought the advice of another French compatriot, Nicolas Batum, as to how things are within the 76ers franchise after catching wind of the rumors linking him to a potential move to Philly.
Suffice to say, Batum had nothing but good things to say regarding the 76ers front office as well as the coaching staff led by head coach Nick Nurse.
“Timothe, especially, when I was here before and he was here. He showed me a little bit of the city, but when the rumor comes out on the internet, I talked to Nicolas and he was telling me how good Nick (Nurse) was going to be as a coach and the city, the love, the fans, the everything, and he was telling me how good of a spot it would be for me to come in here,” Yabusele recalled.
