How Good Is Guerschon Yabusele?

Let’s examine whether the Dancing Bear can boogie his way into the Sixers’ rotation.

One week after The Draft Council spent 10 minutes raving about how Guerschon Yabusele deserves a second chance in the NBA, the French forward wound up in Philly wearing a Sixers uniform. Just in case any of you needed more proof of the influence the Rickyverse holds over the direction of the franchise. 

Yabusele (also known as “The Dancing Bear”) was the breakout star of the Olympics’ gold medal match, finishing the game with 20 points on 14 shots and a thunderous poster dunk over LeBron James, of all people. The Sixers were heavily lacking at the power forward position following the departure of Nicolas Batum, so who better to pseudo-replace him then his own French national teammate? That’s certainly what Daryl Morey asked, as he’s reportedly brought Yabusele into the fold for just $825,000 this next season. 

It’s all well and good to sign everyone’s favorite August basketball player, but is it actually the right move? Yabusele has been out of the NBA since 2019, with the Celtics cutting bait with him just two years after taking him with the 16th overall pick in the draft. FIBA basketball — while objectively a great entertainment product — does not have a 1:1 translation to NBA hoops. The rules are slightly tweaked, the three-point line is closer to the basket, and the game is officiated in a wildly different manner — just to name a few distinctions. From Sergio Rodriguez to Milos Teodosic, plenty of overseas stars have flopped in the NBA. 

To answer this question, I took a closer look at Yabusele’s play with Real Madrid the past few seasons. Here’s what you need to know:

The No. 1 reason behind Yabusele’s return to the NBA is his improved three-point shot. During his two seasons with the Celtics, The Dancing Bear only attempted 65 triples in 74 games, and even worse, he made just 21 of them, clocking in at a subpar 32.3 3PT%. 

Flash forward a half-decade, and Yabusele is coming off a 64-game stint with Real Madrid where he shot 77-for-173 from behind the three-point line, good for a blistering 44.5% mark from three. And it wasn’t just a flash in the pan, rather, Yabu has consistently shot around 40% from deep since being exiled from the NBA, while shooting roughly 2-3 triples per game. Pretty low volume, but it’s a) a lot more than he shot when he was with the Celtics, and b) he didn’t play quite enough minutes in Europe to have gargantuan volume.

Looking back at his tape from his two seasons in Boston, his shot form hasn’t changed in any drastic way. He still hucks the ball from over his head and perches it well onto his right shoulder, it just happens to go in a lot more than it used to. His feet are still widely set whenever he releases the ball, though it appears he uses a slightly more narrow stance than he used to.

Overall, Yabusele just shoots the ball a lot more confidently and a lot more accurately than he did five years ago, albeit from a closer three-point line. There isn’t much more to it than that. 

Of the 173 threes that Yabusele attempted this past season with Real Madrid, only nine came off the dribble. He was not operating as a primary in the offense, randomly pulling contested triples over the defense. Rather, he took the standard role player shots that the Sixers want their minimum contract power forwards to take. 

Contrary to what some might assure when a veteran player returns to the NBA, Yabusele’s stint overseas was not a story of complete and utter domination (at least on the individual level, seeing as Real Madrid has played in each of the last three EuroLeague championships). He averaged just 9.6 points and 3.9 rebounds while playing 21.9 minutes per game, and was rarely the one running the show on offense. He was undoubtedly important, but he was not indispensable.  

The only superstar-esque usage Yabusele was given in Spain was in the post, where Real Madrid was happy to deploy him as the world’s thickest battering ram. He finished last season with 90 total post-up possessions, and generated a pristine 1.078 points per possession on those opportunities, per Synergy. He didn’t show absurd touch on fadeaways or step backs, and his footwork wasn’t anything to write home about. Yet, Yabu was deadly inside by keeping things simple. Either used his girth to muscle through whoever stood in his path for righty jump hooks, or used the threat of him running over a defender to draw in a double team before finding a cutting teammate for an easy layup. 

There are more able bodied defenders in the NBA who can take the brunt of Yabusele without being run over, but he’s still a stronger than average basketball player no matter what league you put him in. 

The only problem Yabusele ran into in the post is one that a lot of lifelong role players struggle to overcome — using their weak hand. There are precisely zero situations where he looked comfortable laying the ball in with his left, and often he would forgo open space on the left side of the floor in order to hammer his way back to the right. Yabusele didn’t need much of a counter inside because spamming his righty drop step was often effective enough, but the few times he had to adjust, it didn’t look pretty. 

But for as important as bully ball post moves were to Yabusele across the water, it’s unlikely he’ll get the same runway for those opportunities in Philadelphia. Real Madrid was comfortable letting their 4 get busy down low because their two options at center were Vincent Poirier and Walter Tavares. Even if Yabu is great at bashing opposing power forwards in the paint, that space will more often be reserved for Joel Embiid and Andre Drumond in his Sixers’ minutes.

One-on-one scoring was the weakest part of Batum’s game in Philly, and it didn’t matter one bit because he performed almost perfectly at the complementary skills that amplify the team’s stars. If Yabusele is going to help recreate Batum in the aggregate, so to speak, then he needs to be an ace at the low usage, non-flashy things that most NBA role players do. 

Defense is one of those non-flashy things, and it’s always been an interesting area for a player that was once referred to as French Draymond. Though it looks great whenever he walls up against a skinnier opponent inside, or can keep up on the perimeter in a big moment, Yabusele is not a flawless stopper. He averaged a respectable-but-not-world-changing 0.8 steals and 0.2 blocks per game, and occasionally struggled when switched onto the EuroLeague’s quickest guards. He’s pretty aggressive and leans very far forward, often leaving him susceptible to a quick blow-by. However, his flashy plays still look great, where he can overwhelm an opponent with his strength and length up top, and inside defending the post, he’s pretty much an immovable brick wall.

As for his passing chops, Yabusele can create shots for his teammates out of the post, but is nowhere close to the post entry savant that Batum was. Of course, he had far less opportunities to show off that skill playing with non-Embiid turnovers. His assist-to-turnover ratio was almost exactly 1:1 — a fairly standard mark for any player who doesn’t handle the ball much. He won’t unlock the Sixers’ star center in a way fans had never seen before, but Yabusele is perfectly capable of fitting the ball in an open window. 

He’s become far more decisive as a decision-maker, rarely hesitating when he sees an open teammate, and confident he has the strength to fire the ball through any tiny crevice in a defense. It won’t be anything world-changing, but Yabusele should be a small positive as a passer on a Sixers team that needs some connective playmaking here and there. 

Overall, Yabusele won’t be as effective for the Sixers as he was against Team USA in the Olympics. As fun as it is, that event is much like using March Madness to evaluate NBA Draft prospects — the big stage certainly matters, but it isn’t more representative of who the player is than their much larger body of work up to that point. 

Still, the Dancing Bear was a perfectly acceptable pickup for Morey and Co. with one of the Sixers’ few remaining roster spots. The team needed a 4, few of which were still available on the open market. In Yabusele, the Sixers have someone who undoubtedly has the strength to hold his own vs NBA competition, and has displayed for the past five years that his on-court skills have caught up to the point where he may be able to stick in the league for good. 

---

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.