“Honestly, it was as if they didn’t offer anything. They did, but the offer was very, very low. I felt like they didn’t really want me to stay” said Guerschon Yabusele when highlighting his reason for leaving the Philadelphia 76ers a few days ago. With reports back in May pointing out that the Sixers are reportedly prioritizing retaining Guerschon Yabusele, it was expected that the player would get a major upgrade to his one-year, $2.1 million veteran minimum contract.
Unfortunately, nothing close to it came Yabusele’s way, causing him to then join the New York Knicks through free agency. Well, no matter how things transpired, LeBron James might still be glad not to have Yabusele as his teammate.
The 55-year-old podcaster and sportswriter recently touched base with co-host Ryen Russillo on Guerschon Yabusele joining the New York Knicks. After discussing where the Minnesota Timberwolves and Houston Rockets would have stood in their desire to acquire the player, Bill Simmons stated that “I actually thought he would have been an interesting Lakers signing”.
Despite the ongoing reported tension between LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers over his demands, the player remains an influential figure within the team. If anyone from the team was going to veto the decision to bring in the power forward, it would have been him. It’s not as if LeBron hates Yabusele. It’s just that the memory of that dunk would still be haunting the NBA All-Time Scorer.
Team USA’s men’s basketball team won the Gold Medal by defeating the host team, France, in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Despite that, France had several highlights throughout the night. Amongst them was a poster dunk that Yabusele made over LeBron James during the game’s 2nd quarter! Yes, this player got the better of the NBA All-Time Scorer with a poster dunk! LeBron, who fell to the floor, had a good game up till that point.
The French paper @lequipe gave an aerial view of Guerschon Yabusele’s dunk over LeBron James the centerfold treatment on Sunday pic.twitter.com/Z8SF9FOewi
— Ben Golliver (@BenGolliver) August 11, 2024
Guerschon Yabusele would later go into detail about the dunk during an interview with Andscape’s Marc J. Spears. The French star revealed,
“He blocked me a couple of plays before. He was talking s**t before, of course. But it was LeBron. Either you dunk it, or he blocks it. I’m not going to lie. It was good at that moment. I wasn’t realizing that it was going to be that big. I’ve been telling guys that I have done a couple of poster dunks in my life and some good ones, too. But to dunk on LeBron with all the people there, especially in the Olympic final, the whole world watching me, I didn’t realize how big it was at the time”.
LeBron already had to go through that ‘traumatic’ experience once. Imagine having that same player on your team! Yikes. Fortunately, LeBron is saved, and Yabusele will now go traumatize Jalen Brunson and co during practice sessions. However if it were up to him, he would have been traumatizing his former Philadelphia 76ers teammates.
NBA Analysts discuss Guerschon Yabusele’s lowball offer
During the same episode, Ryen Russillo said, “By the way Philly this time, it’s personal. With Yabusele. He was like they offered me two million”. Bill Simmons agreed, and added, “Um yeah it was like, he was like, ‘it’s like they wanted me to leave. They were like driving me to the airport, trying to get rid of me. It was weird’”.
Yabusele certainly felt that something was weird about how he was being treated by his team. The player admitted that “I was thinking to myself, ‘Oh my god, I could go back. I didn’t really have any issues over there like I want to leave, no. I was like, ‘Ok, if they want to re-sign me and then they give me something good, I will come back, for sure. And if they want me to leave, then I will leave.’”
From his side, the power forward had no hard feelings or hard times with his teammates. Despite that, “they almost didn’t make really like an offer.” This makes one ask the question: Why?
The exact details of what offer the 76ers made to Yabusele are unknown. However, if the Knicks made him a 2-year, $11.6 million offer, you have to wonder just how low the 76ers went. It is not as if the player was lacking on the performance front. After all, Yabusele averaged 11.0 points through 4.0-8.0 (50.1%) field goals, 1.5-3.9 (38.0%) 3-pointers, and 1.4-2.0 (72.5%) free throws.
Credits – USA Today Network via Imagn
The most justifiable reason is that the team simply was not in a position financially to meet the player’s demands. The Philadelphia 76ers already have a salary cap of $210.96 million, with Joel Embiid and Paul George commanding almost half of that pay. Even a slight pay raise of a player worsened the team’s condition on the luxury tax front.
No matter what happened, Guerschon Yabusele now has a new journey to look forward to with the New York Knicks.
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