Guerschon Yabusele believes the Philadelphia 76ers’ midseason roster overhaul derailed their chances of making the playoffs during the 2024–25 season.
Speaking with new Knicks teammates Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart on the Roommates Show, the former Sixers forward reflected on what went wrong in his lone season with the team. Yabusele pointed to the flurry of trade deadline moves as the moment the locker room dynamic began to unravel.
“I feel like we tried and then what really changed the team a little bit was, in my opinion, was the trades,” he said, via ClutchPoints.
Yabusele emphasized that before the roster shakeup, the team had been building something solid, despite injury setbacks. He believed patience would have been the better option.
“Guys were just injured. We should have trust a little bit more that and try to let the guys come back to be able to pursue, try to get to the playoffs,” he continued.
Yabusele noted that the constant roster turnover made it difficult for the team to establish cohesion.
“When we changed that, basically we changed four guys or something like that. And then there’s like four new guys coming up,” he said. “It was a lot of guys that keep getting signed for 10-day contracts here and there. So it was hard to find the chemistry.”
The Sixers ultimately missed the playoffs for the first time since 2017, finishing with a losing record after high expectations entering the year. The team had acquired All-Star forward Paul George before the season and was expected to contend in the Eastern Conference.
Yabusele, who signed with Philadelphia on August 29, 2024, played a career-high 70 games, including 43 starts. He averaged 11.0 points and 5.6 rebounds on 50.1% shooting from the field.
On July 7, Yabusele signed a two-year, $11.7 million contract with the New York Knicks.
