Sixers to sign Guerschon Yabusele after impressive Olympics for France

The Sixers are signing 6-foot-8 forward Guerschon Yabusele after an impressive showing with France in the 2024 Olympics, a league source confirmed to 97.3 ESPN on Sunday afternoon.

Yabusele is signing a one-year deal worth $2.1 million with Philadelphia, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. That is the league minimum for a player with two years of NBA service.

Under the NBA's collective bargaining agreement, Philadelphia will have to pay up to $850,000 to help facilitate Yabusele's buyout from Real Madrid. The silver medal winner will have to work with Real Madrid to come to terms on the remainder of his buyout.

So, you could make the case that this is a small coup for Philadelphia, Yabusele having to accept an opportunity cost as part of buying out his $2.5-million contract with the EuroLeague club to take a minimum contract with the Sixers.

Yabusele, with his height and 7-foot-1 wingspan, has the physical tools to stick in the NBA. As the league trended toward wing play and versatility on the perimeter, the intangible gifts were part of why the Boston Celtics felt tantalized enough to select him 16th overall in the 2016 draft.

But, his perimeter game (32.3 percent from three in two seasons with the Celtics) failed to translate to NBA distance, and the Celtics' optimism ran dry by July of 2019.

Since then, Yabusele has connected on more than 41 percent of his attempts from the closer three-point line over five seasons abroad.

While Yabusele's play in the Olympics clearly left an impression on NBA teams, he shot just 29 percent from three in the summer games. Although, that volume of attempts is far too small to draw conclusions one way or another.

The Sixers are incredibly thin in forward depth. They've spent all resources available to them, only eligible to sign free agents via veteran minimum deals for the remainder of the league year. Sure, they've modernized quite a bit with the slew of wing signings this summer. And if all those wings provided enough positional overlap to forge true bulk at power forward, the Sixers might only be focused on monitoring their rebounding prowess as the season plays out.

But, they didn't have a traditionally-sized strong guy to pad their power forward position. And given the money they had left to spend, the options consisted of luring another declining veteran in or taking a flyer on a younger, hungrier player who was perhaps flying under the radar.

When you're Yabusele's age and size, defense and rebounding are largely matters of will. If you buy into defending and commit yourself to doing what the team needs, the staying power will likely come down to shooting. That will be his swing skill; the difference between traveling the world and finding a home in the NBA.

While there are always politics at play and salaries often equate to minutes, Yabusele has some equity that many veteran-minimum players don't. He's arguably the only player on the roster who truly fits the bill at power forward. Sure, there's a reason he wasn't in the NBA before. Sure, he's on a veteran minimum. But, given that he fills a hole for which the Sixers don't project to have any other plugs at this time, it's not exactly wishful to think of scenarios in which he's in the regular rotation, if not the starting lineup.

The best-case scenario is that he's this year's Kelly Oubre Jr, providing a combination of athleticism, versatility, and length that is so useful that the contract is nothing short of a steal. The worst-case scenario is that the Sixers were bitten by recency bias and let him warm a seat until they need his roster spot elsewhere or the season comes to an end.

Either way, low risk, high reward. It's Daryl Morey's second favorite game.