How many players have left Real Madrid to join NBA teams?

Over the past 32 years, the North American League has not stopped its expansionist drive. It has colonized everything with an aggressive communication policy that digital and technological transformation has made possible. From photos and magazines to the immediacy of plays, dunks and three-pointers, on X and Youtube. A domination of the minds and spirits of the youngest who wear the shirts of its stars, many of them already European because this process of domination has brought benefits to both parties.

Players from the Old Continent have regularly been seduced by the NBA, by a competition that is no longer viewed as the El Dorado of yesteryear. It is simply a competition in which to test yourself. To see if you are lucky. Trust that quality, time and place will all coincide, and success follows. And if it doesn’t, there’s always the opportunity to return home.

Last season, 125 non-American players started the tournament, two young French players featured in the last two drafts: Zaccharie Risacher and Victor Wembanyama, while three of the last five MVPs: Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid, are either European or started out there.

Yabusele looking for a second chance

The recent Olympic Games gave some players the chance to showcase their talents and for some of them, a chance to sell themselves to NBA franchises. Guerschon Yabusele shone for France at the Games, picking up a silver medal along the way as well as drawing attention to himself for those who remember his two seasons with the Boston Celtics.

Yabusele has since agreed terms with the Philadelphia 76ers, leaving Real Madrid after three seasons to have a second adventure in the best league in the world. He is the 16th player who has swapped Real Madrid for the NBA and the sixth since Nikola Mirotic made the move to join the Chicago Bulls in the summer of 2014.

After the Spanish-Montenegrin, it would be the turn of Chacho Rodríguez, who like Yabusele would try his hand at the NBA for a second time in 2016 (also with the Sixers); Luka Doncic, Facundo Campazzo, Gabriel Deck and Usman Garuba all followed - the two Argentineans both leaving halfway through the season.

Real Madrid at least received financial compensation for losing their high-quality players. Through the last seven cases (including Yabusele) the Spanish club has earned theoretically about 20.3 million euros through the different exit clauses. Theoretically because it is a figure with nuances since some of the players who left did not deposit the entire amount upon returning to the capital (the payments were normally divided into annual deposits).

And some players who abandoned ship, ended up returning home - such as Campazzo, Deck and, now, Garuba. El Chacho also eventually returned, although indirectly. And in the distant horizon (very distant) there is faith that Doncic will close his career at his former home.

Real Madrid player who have made the leap to the NBA

The first Real Madrid player to be enticed to moving to the NBA was Wayne Hightower. Philadelphia-born, Hightower ended up at Real Madrid by accident as NBA rules barred players with college eligibility from being drafted or signed to a team. He joined on a one-year contract in 1961, and guided the team to the domestic league title as well as FIBA European Champions Cup final.

Hightower completed his college education in Madrid before returning to the US to sign for the San Francisco Warriors.

Another 22 years would pass before another Madrid player would make the same journey. Fernando Martín became the first Spanish player to move to the NBA, joining the Portland Trail Blazers in 1986 after five years playing for his hometown club. Injury meant that he played just 24 games for Portland, averaging 6.1 minutes per game and finishing with 22 points and 28 rebounds.

Three years later, Croatian guard Drazen Petrovic followed in his footsteps, joining the Trail Blazers after the franchise paid his $1.5 million release clause in the summer of 1989.