{"id":752726,"date":"2026-06-22T11:11:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/752726\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T11:11:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:11:16","slug":"kouakou-heugue-and-nbl-agree-to-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/752726\/","title":{"rendered":"Kouakou-Heugue and NBL agree to release"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>French prospect Noa Kouakou-Heugue and the Hungry Jack\u2019s NBL have reached agreement on a mutual release.<\/p>\n<p>Following extensive discussions, all parties have agreed it is in Kouakou-Heugue\u2019s best interests to explore professional opportunities in Europe for this upcoming season and, with agreement on terms now being reached, he has been released from his Next Stars contract.<\/p>\n<p>The 18-year-old appeared in 17 games across Perth\u2019s 2025-26 campaign, recording season-highs of 8 points and 4 rebounds in a win over Cairns in Round 6.<\/p>\n<p>Next Stars General Manager, Liam Santamaria, has thanked Kouakou-Heugue for his efforts across the Hungry Jack\u2019s NBL26 season and wished him well for his future endeavours.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe wish Noa all the best as he embarks on the next chapter of his basketball journey and look forward to supporting him throughout his career moving forward,\u201d Santamaria said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn addition to being a fine young man, Noa is a talented young player with great upside. We trust the development he experienced whilst with the Wildcats last season will hold him in good stead for the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe thank Noa for being part of the Next Stars program and wish him great success moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782126676_755_69d47a153353ed2bdf7cd807_Article Banner_1920x250 (1).jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French prospect Noa Kouakou-Heugue and the Hungry Jack\u2019s NBL have reached agreement on a mutual release. Following extensive&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-752726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}