Guerschon Yabusele had a productive return to the NBA with the Sixers. As he heads to New York, it will be his personality and mindset that are more difficult to replace.
As Guerschon Yabusele settled onto a courtside chair next to me within the Sixers’ practice facility last December, I couldn’t help but notice a sizable scratch on his neck — the price of doing business when you stand 6-foot-8 and weigh 260 pounds, and you make your living jostling with other large men within a 94-by-50-foot rectangle.
By his recollection, the wound had been incurred in a game two or three weeks earlier.
“It was crazy, because I didn’t see,” he said. “And then I look in the mirror, and it was red, but like, really open.”
Then he pointed to another scar on his left shoulder, further evidence that he was fully immersed in the NBA experience in his second go-round. The Frenchman had flunked a two-year trial with Boston a few seasons earlier, but after playing overseas for a time and starring for his native country in the Olympics last summer, he returned to the Association in the fall more fully formed, more prepared for the task at hand.
And now he’s gone. Gone to the Knicks, reportedly on a modest two-year, $12 million deal. Those well-versed in salary capology have noted that in order to retain the $20 million or so it will take to re-sign restricted free agent Quentin Grimes, his deal would have had to get done before that of Yabusele, who was unrestricted. Instead, New York intervened, and he now joins a big-man rotation that also includes Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson.
The fit seemed just as good here, though, in every sense. Yabusele’s willingness to scratch and claw — combined with his shooting, screening and sharing — made him as beloved in the locker room as he was in the stands. Then-Sixer Caleb Martin told me in January that Yabu was “one of the biggest bright spots to our team,” and given the injuries and the losing, who could argue?
And more than that, there was the joy he brought to a dreary season. His corner of the locker room, which he shared with the likes of Ricky Council IV and Jeff Dowtin Jr., always seemed like a brighter, happier place. And when the man long ago dubbed the Dancing Bear showed off his surprising agility during a game — when he romped the length of the court for a dunk or slipped a deft pass to a teammate — others were quick to celebrate him.
“He’s just a good person, man,” Tyrese Maxey told me in January. “You like to see good people like that succeed.”
That feeling extended beyond Philadelphia. Cleveland head coach Kenny Atkinson was an assistant on France’s Olympic team last summer. And when he brought the Cavaliers to town in January, he mentioned that Yabusele had had “a lotta lightbulb moments” in Paris — none bigger than a dunk on LeBron James in the gold-medal game.
Atkinson went on to say that Yabu was “FIBA tough,” and that he had “performed stupendously” for the Sixers.
“Happy for him,” Atkinson said. “Great guy.”
In truth there was a certain innocence about Yabusele, more than you might expect from a married 29-year-old father of two. He seemed overjoyed about his journey, gratified that he had finally figured the NBA game out.
So while his production — 11 points and not quite six rebounds a game — is replaceable, it would have been interesting to see how things would have played out for him here, as part of a group with which he had such obvious chemistry. Because when it comes down to it, you feel like there’s even more there. That he was, you should pardon the expression, just scratching the surface of what he could be.