Before he was officially traded to the Bulls, veteran big man Guerschon Yabusele worked with the Knicks to adjust his contract, according to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Sports Network (Twitter link).
Yabusele’s deal included a $5.78MM player option for the 2026/27 season that was reducing his trade value, since potential trade partners had no interest in taking on that salary with the Frenchman having a down year in ’25/26. However, he declined that player option as part of his move to Chicago, Johnson reports, and is now on track for unrestricted free agency this summer.
According to Joel Lorenzi of The Athletic (Twitter link), there’s a very real chance that Yabusele, a former EuroLeague star, will head back overseas next season.
It’s worth noting that Yabusele was recently linked to Hapoel Tel Aviv in Israel and several European teams are reportedly monitoring his situation. But he’s expected to remain with Chicago for the rest of the season.
As Ian Begley of SNY.tv writes (via Twitter), Yabusele declining his player option helped grease the wheels not only on the deal that sent him to Chicago but also helped the Knicks acquire Jose Alvarado from New Orleans. Begley hears Yabusele, who has received limited run this season, will be given an opportunity to play for the Bulls.
The Bulls will benefit from Yabusele’s decision financially, as they’ll have extra cap room in 2026. The player they traded away — former first-round pick Dalen Terry — would have been eligible for restricted free agency.
Guess this is it for the Dancing Bear in the NBA.
Was that a wise idea?
He is going back to Europe, he expected a bigger role from a decent Olympics and dunk on LeBron but he does not do much to get a big role.
he had a huge role for Philly last year and played great. Think he could maybe do it again with more opportunity, but, idk
Unfortunately won’t happen with the Bulls. He’s too tall for Dumbovans rotation
Without the player option, it’s confusing as to why NOP wanted Terry over him. GY was good at times over the past year. Terry hasn’t been.
Why would you turn down a 6m option for doing nothing?
Increased playing time on the Bulls which could lead to higher future earnings. Taking that player option meant staying on the Knicks, where he would get almost no playing time the rest of the season and likely next season unless they traded him in the offseason.
He would have most likely been waived next year. I completely agree he lost 6m and could have the same end in both senereos
Bad move by Yabusele
Pretty sure Yabu understands his options better than you. He wants to play and show international teams that he’s worth a decent contract. His buyout alone with Real Madrid was worth $2.5 million. He’s not going to be losing much money here.
Yabusele will not only get an opportunity to play for the bulls he will probably get worn down to a stump as they have nine guards on the team. The only other healthy person who can play center is Leonard Miller, since Jalen Smith will now have to play power forward in order to avoid playing Patrick Williams.
What is amazing is if my math is correct the bulls still have 50 million in cap space next year with all the expiring contracts and Yabusele giving up his option. I hope that means there will be some activity on draft night with all the second round picks they acquired, perhaps they can package some guards and pics to move up in the draft.
Bulls Legend Nick Richards would like a word.
I agree they have too much redundancy with guards and not enough pf and c options. That said, I do need to point out that Nick Richards is 6’11” with a return date of Saturday according to ESPN. And hopefully Collins will be back shortly after AS break. And, after watching him with the Wolves, I would not play Miller as a center…
OK ———. nice for Bulls . They can just buy him out now. He has a contract waiting in Europe.
A good thing for the Bulls not to be on the hook for $5.78 million for GY. Even more open cap space.