{"id":864720,"date":"2026-08-22T19:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T19:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864720\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T19:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T19:56:09","slug":"sylvain-francisco-says-opportunity-with-bulls-fell-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864720\/","title":{"rendered":"Sylvain Francisco Says Opportunity With Bulls Fell Through"},"content":{"rendered":"

French guard Sylvain Francisco<\/a>, who finished runner-up<\/a> for last season\u2019s EuroLeague MVP award, recently told L\u2019Equipe<\/a> (subscriber link) that multiple NBA teams offered him guaranteed money in free agency. However, he ultimately stayed<\/a> in Europe with Greek powerhouse Panathinaikos after initially signing with ASVEL, as Aris Barkas of Eurohoops<\/a> relays.<\/p>\n

Francisco admitted he was disappointed his NBA opportunities fell through following a strong 2025\/26 season with Zalgiris Kaunas in which he averaged 16.7 points, 6.4 assists, 2.8 rebounds and 1.0 steal on .452\/.399\/.800 shooting splits in 38 EuroLeague appearances (27.2 minutes per game) with the Lithuanian club.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, in the NBA, there were openings, at least five or six teams, many on guaranteed two-year contracts,\u201d Francisco reportedly said. \u201cI had the opportunity with the Chicago Bulls, but the trade they wanted to make before stalled because in the NBA, everyone was waiting for LeBron\u2019s decision. However, my deadline (to active his NBA out clause from ASVEL) was until July 20, and LeBron signed\u2026 four days later.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, that\u2019s where all the teams really started to transfer players, make more trades. It\u2019s a shame,\u201d Francisco continued. \u201cI was a little angry, let\u2019s say. But it\u2019s something I don\u2019t have control over. In the end, it can be a blessing in disguise. I stay in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Francisco, who went undrafted in 2019 and played for Milwaukee\u2019s Summer League team in 2022, also discussed ASVEL\u2019s financial issues which led to his departure from Lyon. Still, the 28-year-old point guard is happy to be back in Greece after spending the 2022\/23 campaign with Peristeri.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t up to me to deal with this situation with ASVEL,\u201d said Francisco, who also plays for the French national team. \u201cSo I let my agents take care of that. It was a bit hard, let\u2019s say. When the French financial authorities come, and they are strict like that, it\u2019s difficult. The project that was in place with ASVEL was very interesting. With the team we would have had, we could have done something in the first year, to then become a big team, reputable, capable of making the playoffs and the Final Four of the Euroleague.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French guard Sylvain Francisco, who finished runner-up for last season\u2019s EuroLeague MVP award, recently told L\u2019Equipe (subscriber link)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85,407875],"class_list":["post-864720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports","tag-sylvain-francisco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864720","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=864720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}