{"id":109816,"date":"2025-08-25T21:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T21:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/109816\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T21:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T21:50:09","slug":"guerschon-yabusele-discusses-signing-with-knicks-hopes-for-eurobasket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/109816\/","title":{"rendered":"Guerschon Yabusele Discusses Signing With Knicks, Hopes For EuroBasket"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guerschon Yabusele<\/a> got a nice raise when he signed a two-year, $11.7MM<\/a> contract with the Knicks this summer, but he was also motivated by the chance to play in New York City. Yabusele talks about his free agency decision, France\u2019s EuroBasket prospects and a few other topics in an interview with Giorgos Kyriakidis of BasketNews<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, you can tell that they have a special bonding between each other,\u201d he said of his new Knicks teammates. \u201cWhen they go on the court together, it\u2019s like they try to kill the other team. They know each other pretty well. They made it so far this year in the playoffs, but year after year, you can just see their progress. So, for me, it was just natural, because I wanted to be part of this. It\u2019s one of the toughest crowds, people know it. So, to be able to go there and be part of this is just something special.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year ago, NBA personnel were buzzing about Yabusele\u2019s performance in the Summer Olympics, where he helped the host French team reach the gold medal game. He eventually signed a one-year minimum contract with Philadelphia in hopes of proving that he could still be an NBA player after five years in Europe.<\/p>\n

Yabusele wound up being a steady contributor for a Sixers team that was torn apart by injuries. He averaged 11.0 points and 5.6 rebounds in 70 games and became a target for several teams on the free agent market.<\/p>\n

Yabusele believes his attitude toward the game was instrumental in making his NBA comeback successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say, first of all, the energy,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople love the energy that I bring on the court \u2013 \u2018dying\u2019 for the ball, diving for the ball. Just fight through it for 48 minutes. It doesn\u2019t matter who win or lose, just keep the same motivation and make people enjoy the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Returning to the NBA last season was somewhat of a financial gamble, as Yabusele had one year left on his Real Madrid contract with a $2.5MM buyout. The Sixers were only permitted to contribute $850K of that, so Yabusele decided to pay the rest himself instead of waiting another year to become a free agent.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a young kid, going to the NBA was a dream,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo, I wanted to go back and make sure I had a chance to explore and play.\u201d<\/p>\n

EuroBasket, which starts Wednesday, will be Yabusele\u2019s first international competition since last year\u2019s Olympics. France is perennially one of the top powers on the world stage, but the team will be short-handed with Victor Wembanyama<\/a>, Rudy Gobert<\/a>, Mathias Lessort<\/a> and Vincent Poirier<\/a> all unavailable.<\/p>\n

Yabusele, who serves as captain, would love to bring home a gold medal after coming close so many times. During his tenure, the French have captured silver in the past two Olympics and were runners-up at EuroBasket 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cA gold medal with France would be special,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been playing with the team for years, and every time we get silver. So I think gold would be the next goal for us. But, of course, winning an NBA championship is also something special. I\u2019ve never been part of something like that. Both would feel great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guerschon Yabusele got a nice raise when he signed a two-year, $11.7MM contract with the Knicks this summer,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[32316,355,99],"class_list":["post-109816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-guerschon-yabusele","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}