He is the last member of Pascal Donnadieu’s squad: Joël Ayayi, 23, joins Nanterre for a season. The Frenchman, who clung to his NBA dream for the past two years (7 NBA matches in total), decided to return to France. The guard spent his time in the G League, the NBA’s developmental league, where he played for the Capital City GoGo and then for the Lakeland Magic.
Ayayi was trained at the Pôle France at INSEP and has only known the National 1 championship, in France. He then flew to the United States and the NCAA, the American university championship. His remarkable stint at Gonzaga from 2018 to 2021, punctuated by a March Madness final lost last year, suggests that Ayayi is an asset of choice for Donnadieu. The latter said of the full-back: “What’s remarkable about Joel is his tremendous versatility. He is able to take rebounds, to score but he is also very altruistic. He’s a real Swiss Army knife in a team.” Nanterre therefore closes its transfer window and offers, on paper, a very competitive team for 2023/2024.
