Sidy Cissoko on New NBA Contract: 'I'm Not Going to Change'

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📍PHOENIX — It was only a few hours before the Trail Blazers' first game after the All-Star break that Sidy Cissoko knew he'd be able to play.

The last game before the break, a road win against the Utah Jazz, was Cissoko's 50th of the season, meaning he'd be ineligible to play the rest of the season if he stayed on a two-way contract.

The day of Friday's game against Denver, he signed a new two-year standard NBA contract after starting 24 games while the Blazers struggled with injuries.

After being drafted in the second round in 2023, not cracking the Spurs' rotation, getting traded twice at the 2025 deadline and then cut by the Wizards, Cissoko got rewarded for his unexpected importance to the Blazers this season, and some validation that despite the rocky start to his career, he belongs in the NBA.

"I don't want to play [in the NBA] for two or three years and then go back to Europe," Cissoko told me Sunday, before the Blazers' win over the Phoenix Suns. "I really want to play here 12 or 13 years. Portland since day one has trusted me."

Cissoko's good news had a bittersweet element, however.

In order to clear a roster spot to sign him, the Blazers needed to waive someone.

And when Cissoko got a call from Rayan Rupert, his fellow Frenchman and best friend on the team, around the same time he found out he had gotten a new contract, he knew what that probably meant.

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