French big man Guerschon Yabusele signed with the New York Knicks this past offseason to play the role of backup center to Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson. However, he has become an afterthought in Knicks head coach Mike Brown’s rotation since Josh Hart returned to the starting unit in place of Robinson.
Yabusele has averaged just 8.0 minutes in December, with most of his playing time coming in garbage time. Amid the Knicks’ current five-game winning streak, he has almost disappeared from Brown’s rotation, with Robinson giving the team a steady diet of defense and rebounding for nearly 19 minutes a night off the bench.
Ahead of Tuesday’s NBA Cup Final against the San Antonio Spurs, Yabusele dropped some worrying comments about his place on the Knicks.
“I don’t want to lie to you, it’s very difficult. I’m a competitor above all else. This is not a situation I thought I would be in when I arrived here [in New York],” he told AFP and Basket USA of his diminishing role.
‘Most Likely’ Knicks Trade
The two-time Olympic silver-medalist added that Brown has urged him to remain “patient” and wait for his opportunities, even as he grows increasingly frustrated.
“I try to be present when my name is called, I try to prepare myself every day to be the best in relation to the playing time I have, and I try to control the impact I have on the court,” added the 28-year-old.
Yabusele revealed he had a “complicated” conversation with the Knicks coaching staff, while comparing the cultural differences between European and NBA basketball.
“The communication is different here, more individualistic than in Europe,” he said. “But I try not to overthink it and stay positive every day.”
It’s worth noting that Yabusele is the Knicks player most likely to be traded before the Feb. 5 deadline, per Stefan Bondy of the New York Post.
“If I were listing the Knicks most likely to be dealt before the February trade deadline, the French native is probably No. 1,” Bondy reported on Dec. 11.
“It’s not that he’d bring back value — quite the opposite, actually — but rather because his situation in New York has gotten so off track.”
NBA Cup Final: Knicks Favorites
Yabusele’s frustrations notwithstanding, the Knicks have the opportunity to capture a championship — albeit not the Larry O’Brien Trophy — on Tuesday when they face the Spurs in the third-annual NBA Cup Final.
The Knicks start as slight -2.5 point betting favorites, per DraftKings, even though they and the Spurs own identical records (18-7) at the 25-game mark of the season.
Either New York or San Antonio will be crowned the third NBA Cup champion, after the Los Angeles Lakers (2023) and Milwaukee Bucks (2024) captured the first two editions of the NBA’s new in-season tournament.
Both teams are in red-hot form. While the Knicks have won nine of their last 10 games, including five in a row, the Spurs have won seven of their previous nine, six of which came without Victor Wembanyama (calf strain) in the lineup.
The Knicks vs. Spurs NBA Cup Final will tip off at 8:30 PM ET on Tuesday, streaming live worldwide on Amazon Prime Video.
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