NBA – Newly arrived, Noa Essengue already reveals how he’ll spend his first paycheck!

Par Pierre-Andréa Fraile | Journaliste sportif

The 12th pick in the NBA Draft 2025, Noa Essengue is set to sign a lucrative first contract with the Bulls. In the meantime, he has already taken the liberty of imagining how he will use the first salary he receives in the league.

Will he regret not making the Top 10 of his draft class? Only time will tell. In the meantime, Noa Essengue can already look back with satisfaction at having secured even a single NBA spot. And not just any NBA spot. On the strength of his performances for Ratiopharm Ulm, he has been selected with the 12th pick by the Bulls, where he can hope to follow in the footsteps of a certain Joakim Noah.

Noa Essengue reveals his first NBA expense

The highest drafted French player this year, Essengue saw Joan Beringer and Nolan Traoré join the NBA ranks within minutes. In the coming months, he’ll be joining other young French players in the league, where the latter are becoming increasingly prominent. A phenomenon about which he spoke to Overtime Europe on the sidelines of the ceremony:

Noa Essengue: “Yeah, I really feel like we French are coming into the league in a big way. But not just the French, I’d say the Europeans as a whole.”

Understandably proud to embody the blue-white-and-red wave that is sweeping across the United States, the 18-year-old winger is apparently hoping to make a spectacular debut:

Noa Essengue: “I’d be very happy if my first NBA basket was a dunk. That would be pretty cool, I think. It would allow me to get the whole room on its feet and warm up my teammates.”

However, Essengue will have to wait a few more months before he can do so in the United States.

For the time being, he will have to sign the contract that will bind him to his new franchise for at least the next two seasons. This contract should pay him a salary of just over 11 million dollars over these two years, and even 25 million dollars over four years. However, there’s no question of him using all this money for purely personal purposes in the immediate future:

Noa Essengue: “What am I going to do with my first NBA check? I think I’ll just go on vacation with my whole family.”

After all the effort it has taken to get this far, the Tricolor international will no doubt be taking some time out with his loved ones. Before getting down to business.